“Man is an abyss. It makes one dizzy to look into it.” So utters Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, repeating what was also a recurring motif in the playwright’s own letters.
National Opera Company of the Rhine has marked this year’s Benjamin Britten celebration with a remarkably compelling, often gripping new production of the seldom-seen Owen Wingrave.
Once upon a time, Frankfurt Opera had the baddest ass reputation in Germany as “the” cutting edge producer of must-see opera.
Productions of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto can serve as a vehicle for individual singers to make a strong impression and become afterward associated with specific roles in the opera.
Just in case we were not aware that the evening’s programme was ‘themed’, the Britten Sinfonia designed a visual accompaniment to their musical exploration of night, sleep and dreams.
Poor Aida! She never seems to have anything go her way.
Is it possible to upstage Jonas Kaufmann? Kaufmann was brilliant in this Verdi Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, London, but the rest of the cast was so good that he was but first among equals. Don Carlo is a vehicle for stars, but this time the stars were everyone on stage and in the pit. Even the solo arias, glorious as they are, grow organically out of perfect ensemble. This was a performance that brought out the true beauty of Verdi's music.
The big names were absent: Duparc, D’Indy, Debussy, Ravel … and while Fauré, Chausson, Roussel and several members of Les Six put in an appearance, in less than familiar guises, this survey of French song of the early 20th century and interwar years deliberately took us on a journey through infrequently travelled terrain.
Composed between 1718 and 1720, Handel’s Esther is sometimes described as the ‘first English Oratorio’, but is in fact a hybrid form, mixing elements of oratorio, masque, pastoral and opera.
Hector Berlioz's légende dramatique, La Damnation de Faust, exists somewhere between cantata and opera. Berlioz's flexible attitude to dramatic form made the piece unworkable on the stages of early 19th century Paris and his music is so vivid that you wonder whether the piece needs staging at all.
St. John’s Smith Square was the site of Elizabeth Connell’s final London concert, intended as a farewell to London on her moving to Australia. It was rendered ultimately final by her unexpected death.
With the building of the Suez Canal, Egypt became more interesting to Western Europeans. Khedive Ismail Pasha wanted a hymn by Verdi for the opening of a new opera house in Cairo, but the composer said he did not write occasional pieces.
Back for its fourth revival, David McVicar’s 2003 production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte has much charm, beauty and artistry.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro has a libretto by Lorenzo daPonte based on the French play La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (The Crazy Day or the Marriage of Figaro) by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799).
For its world class Easter Festival, Baden-Baden mounted a Die Zauberflöte that owed more to the grey penitential doldrums of Lent than to the unbridled jubilance of re-birth.
Once Berkeley Opera, renamed West Edge Opera, this enterprising company offers the Bay Area’s only serious alternative to corporate opera, to wit Bonjour M. Gauguin.
In the first of pianist Julius Drake’s three-part series, ‘Perspectives’, our gaze was directed at Gustav Mahler’s eclectic musical responses to human experiences: from the trauma and distress of anguished love to the sweet contentment of true friendship, from the agonised introspection of the artist to the diverse dramas of human interaction.
The Los Angeles opera company marketed its spring production of Rossini's La Cenerentola as Cinderella though there is no opera by that name. The libretto of La Cenerentola is not the Cinderella story we know.
The Paris Opéra has not staged a full Ring Cycle since 1957, but its current season will conclude with a correction of this grand operatic gap.
Washington National’s 2012-2013 season continues this spring with a production of Giacomo Puccini’s first successful opera.
In a climate in which bel canto opera seems to be enjoying a steady and welcome revival, ETO opened their current season with a welcome production of Donizetti's historically dubious account of the latter days of Anne Boleyn. The company's...
In a climate in which bel canto opera seems to be enjoying a steady and welcome revival, ETO opened their current season with a welcome production of Donizetti's historically dubious account of the latter days of Anne Boleyn. The company's fine Maria Stuarda three years ago is still fresh in the memory, and one wonders whether the company might be brave enough to complete the 'set' with a staging of Roberto Devereux before too long.
The basic framework of Soutra Gilmour's versatile set serves all three productions on the current tour, and for this opera the set's skeleton had tapestry panels mounted upon it which slid in and out of place to create different spaces and enable characters to conceal themselves from one another.
In the title role, Julie Unwin grew in confidence and vocal security as the evening progressed – at the start her tone, dynamics and vibrato overpowered the musical line a little, but by the middle of the first act she had settled into it and she gave a particularly convincing performance in the lyrical moments of the later scenes.
She was, however, overshadowed by outstanding performances from two colleagues: Julia Riley's Jane Seymour was rich-voiced, elegant, poised, passionate and credible – and although Luciano Botelho's dryish tenor is not quite beautiful, he made almost effortless work of Lord Percy's stratospherically high-lying passages. I suspect that this is one of those roles which, when sung even half-decently, is guaranteed to bring the house down – however Botelho really did deliver it with style and panache.
In fact, while most ETO offerings boast one or two particularly strong performances, I forget the last time they fielded such a strong all-round cast. Former ENO principal Riccardo Simonetti was a commanding Henry VIII, while Jonathan Pugsley's Lord Rochford and Serena Kay's Smeaton were also luxuriously sung.
Performing in an orchestration which suits the forces available (and with several cuts to the score) the company has put together a fine orchestra this time around, too, with some particularly good woodwind – Michael Lloyd conducted.
Julie Unwin
ETO's decision to perform in the original Italian – a rare exception to their usual English-language policy – was perhaps a wise one, as this repertoire benefits from the Italian vowel sounds combined with the bel canto melodic lines. However the scrolling surtitles were laughable, full of misspellings and oblivious to what might unintentionally cause amusement. But overall this is a creditable account of an opera which has been unjustly neglected in the country from which it takes its inspiration.
Ruth Elleson © 2008