Dulce Rosa, a brand new opera, had its world premiere Friday night, May 17, 2013 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. It was produced by Los Angeles Opera, but staged in the smaller theater.
Richard Jones’ 2009 production of Verdi’s Falstaff translates the action from the first Elizabethan age to the start of the second.
Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production.
It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando Villazón has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘Villazón: Verdi’ and ‘Villazón’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.
Nicola Luisotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra climbed out of the War Memorial pit, braved the wind whipped bay and held spellbound an audience at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley.
Utterly mad but absolutely right — Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not “about” Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made.
“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.
![Three boys [Photo by Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago]](http://www.operatoday.com/Flute_Chicago_2166.png)
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s recent revival of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte offered a production with vocal pairs carefully matched and dramatic representation expressing the varying shades of Mozart’s score.
Tamino and Pamina, the pair who must undergo separately tests of purification, were sung by Charles Castronovo (debut) and Nicole Cabell. The Queen of the Night, mother of Pamina, featured Audrey Luna (debut) and Evan Boyer assumed the role of Sarastro, since Günter Groissböck was announced as indisposed for the performance reviewed. Stéphane Degout (debut) and Jennifer Jakob were a musical and dramatic delight as Papageno and Papagena. Sir Andrew Davis conducted with attention to nuance while maintaining always a sense of the whole. During the overture Davis encouraged a terse interplay among the strings with a measured drive forward. Pauses were effective at transitional moments just as shifting tempos were integrated to give significant shaping to the overture.
The three ladies of the Queen of the Night acted and sang as a splendid trio. Once Tamino’s calls for help prompt their arrival and slaughter of the serpent pursuing him, the ladies moved in unison yet each doted individually over the unconscious hero. Elisabeth Meister as the First Lady led the ensemble with her focused soprano binding the vocal line as she encouraged a report to the Queen of the Night. Cecelia Hall and Katherine Lerner were equally entertaining in their attempts to remain vocally and physically in the presence of Tamino. When the latter awakens, he is met of course by Papageno who accepts credit for having delivered the hero from danger. In his introductory aria, “Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja” [“I am indeed the birdcatcher”], and ensuing dialogue Stéphane Degout combined a lyrical confidence with delightful swagger in acknowledging the unfounded recognition. As his discussion with Tamino is interrupted and punished, when the three ladies returned, Degout’s Papageno displayed his protests with convincing pantomime. In control of the stage once again, the three ladies present Tamino with a portrait of Pamina. In reacting to the portrait Castronovo’s performance of “Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön” [“This portrait is magically beautiful”] displays lyrical heft and beauty of tone while some of the louder pitches could be rounded or softened to express the magical attraction. The entrance of the Queen of the Night and her first bravura aria provided Ms. Luna with opportunities to show her vocal facility [“O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn” (“O do not tremble, my dear son!”)]. Luna’s dramatic high notes on “Ach helft!” [“Oh help!”] were especially effective, these being followed by practiced runs in the famous coloratura passages. After Tamino and Papageno receive their magical instruments, flute and glockenspiel, from the ladies, they are instructed to follow the lead of the three Knaben [“youths”] to find the path to Pamina and rescue her from the palace of Sarastro.
Nicole Cabell as Pamina
At the first appearance of Pamina under the guard of Monostratos, Nicole Cabell projected a noble demeanor on lines such as “Der Tod macht mich nicht beben” [“Death does not make me quake”]. In the ensuing duet with Papageno, “Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen” [“For men who truly sense love”], Ms. Cabell sang expressive, arching lines while Degout truly came into his own with a superbly resonant tone and appropriate legato. In the following scene Tamino searches for the entrance to Sarastro’s palace, in order to confront the alleged captor, just as Papageno leads Pamina in search of the flute’s response. Ms. Cabell’s encouragement to speak only the truth (“die Wahrheit”) rang out in pure high tones in preparation for the entrance of Sarastro. Mr. Boyer’s assumption of this role communicates the requisite weight of authority, and his distinctive and well developed low register contributes to a seamless vocal technique. His dramatic approach might be enhanced at this point in the action in order to signal the gravity of the forthcoming initiation.
Preparatory ceremony and eighteenth-century dress are emphasized in this production at the start of Act Two as both Pamina and Tamino are given instruction toward their trials of purification. Mr. Boyer’s Sarastro and the chorus assumed here solemn tones in keeping with the following ritual scenes. The interplay of power between the Queen and Sarastro focuses now on Pamina. Ms. Luna projected accelerating coloratura intensity in her aria “Der Hölle Rache” [“The wrath of Hell”] as she encouraged her daughter to kill Sarastro. Mr. Boyer’s subsequent rendition of “In diesen heil’gen Hallen” [“In these hallowed halls”] displayed excellent breath control with rounded bass emphasis fully audible. The final two highlights of this act belonged indeed to Ms. Cabell and Mr. Degout. Pamina’s “Ach, ich fühl’s” [“O, I feel it”] in response to Tamino’s enforced silence was performed with emotional commitment, skillful diminuendo, and further vocal decorations emphasizing the heroine’s plight. In Papageno’s “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” [“A maiden or a wife”] Degout acted and sang with genuine ardor, while he climbed onto the stage following his search through the aisles of the audience. In this scene Degout captured the essence of both the character and the music as he embellished his yearning lines with tasteful appoggiatura. In keeping with this performance Papagena was a fitting reward.
Salvatore Calomino
Scene from The Magic Flute