15 Nov 2009
London has long been spoiled in the operatic rarity department, thanks to companies like Opera Rara, Chelsea Opera Group and University College Opera populating various areas of the Venn diagram that is obscure repertoire. »
12 Nov 2009
Hindemith’s Das Marienleben has a formidable reputation, but is rarely heard. Soile Isokoski could change all that. This cycle is a tour de force, but tours de force need singers capable of achieving them. »
11 Nov 2009
Wagner was last on stage in Houston’s Wortham Theater Center in 2001, when the Houston Grand Opera staged Tannhäuser. »
10 Nov 2009
This grueling production of Bartok’s operatic masterpiece, Duke
Bluebeard’s Castle, clearly did not set out to retain any of the
ambiguity and mystery of the fairytale which inspired it. »
09 Nov 2009
If Herbert von Karajan conducted Madama Butterfly and Maria Callas sang Isolde it follows that Nicola Luisotti should conduct Salome. »
09 Nov 2009
As an interpreter of Benjamin Britten, Philip Langridge has long been
esteemed as the natural successor to Peter Pears; »
04 Nov 2009
Unlike many contemporary composers — who too often derive their operas from full-length novels — William Bolcom (whose first opera, to be fair, was the novel-based McTeague, which I do not know) based his second, »
04 Nov 2009
Rio de Janeiro, which has had a string of winning luck in recent days — not only will it host the 2014 World Cup of soccer, but also the 2016 Olympic Games — continues a laudable and venerable tradition in the arts — the Biannual Festival of Contemporary Brazilian Music, now in its 18th edition. »
03 Nov 2009
In celebration of their 25th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel, English Touring Opera has devised Handelfest, an extravaganza of five operas (Flavio, Teseo, Tolomeo, Alcina and Ariodante) and a wide variety of masterclasses and workshops taking in several of the company’s usual touring venues. »
03 Nov 2009
Thomas Arne's masterpiece, Artaxerxes, was a huge hit after its 1762 debut. Yet the work is now a rarity. This spectacular performance at the Linbury Studio Theatre, will certainly raise its public profile. »
03 Nov 2009
The Paris Opera season started with ‘un boum,’ scoring decisive successes with two infrequently performed stage pieces. »
30 Oct 2009
At the time of the premiere of Tancredi in 1813, Rossini, not quite
twenty-one years old, had been composing works for the stage for three years
and was still not world famous. »
30 Oct 2009
For Italy’s opera community, October is Verdi’s month. The composer was born near Busseto (now part of Parma Province) on October 10, 1813. »
29 Oct 2009
Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen received its European premiere at the Oxford Lieder Festival. »
26 Oct 2009
Shadows and reflections flicker and dart alarmingly across Tanya McCallin’s dark, gloomy sets for David McVicar’s The Turn of the Screw, first seen in 2007, in a disturbing production that chillingly conveys both infinite mystery and claustrophobic terror. »
26 Oct 2009
Greed, lust and folly … Richard Jones’ comic double bill, first seen in 2007 and faithfully revived here by Elaine Kidd, certainly sharpens the spotlight on those eternal human foibles. »
26 Oct 2009
The Met’s production of Der Rosenkavalier still arouses gasps
from audience members as the curtain rises on each set — and laughter at
appropriate moments — and tears at others. »
25 Oct 2009
Dr. Charles Burney, who in August 1770 heard Galuppi’s singing girls
at the Incurabili, one of Venice’s four competing Ospedali or
musical orphanages, admired both their excellent performing standard
(“indeed all were such as would have merited and received great applause
in the first operas of Europe”), and the quality of the music that the
aging maestro was still able to write for them: “ it is generally allowed
here that his last operas, and his last compositions for the church, abound
with more spirit, taste, and fancy, than those of any other period of his
life”. »
25 Oct 2009
There is a buzz of excitement in the War Memorial Opera House on Friday nights that is akin to the Saturday afternoon buzz at the Met. »
25 Oct 2009
Ruxandra Donose sings Concepción in Ravel's L'heure Espagnoie in a double bill with Gianni Schicchi at the Royal Opera House. Concepción is an unusual personality, so Miss Donose's characterization is interesting. »
25 Oct 2009
Saturday October 17th found the Los Angeles Dodgers out of town for the weekend, but traffic still clogged the freeways leading to their stadium. »
20 Oct 2009
ETO’s production of Tolomeo for one night only at the Britten Theatre, capitalizes brilliantly on the necessary simplicity of this chamber-like opera, written at a time when Handel could no longer call upon fabulous sets and stunning effects, relying only upon great singing - and what singers he wrote it for, in fact the grand trio of Senesino, Cuzzoni and Bordoni. »
19 Oct 2009
For the first production of its 55th season Lyric Opera of Chicago has staged a revival of Puccini’s Tosca with a cast of notable singers led by music director Sir Andrew Davis. »
16 Oct 2009
Vincent d’Indy lived eighty years and, when not composing, spent his time revising the teaching of music in France or simply annoying everybody. »
15 Oct 2009
Noblesse oblige: The Met feels it must present Aida — and
Tosca — and La Bohème — and certain other gaudy spectacles — because it’s the Met and everyone expects the grandest of the grand. »
13 Oct 2009
Some of the more memorable achievements of San Francisco Opera occurred in the brief life-span of its Spring Opera season, 1961-1981. »
13 Oct 2009
A writer goes to dine in an urban Chinese restaurant, where his eye is caught by a distressed young woman among the crowd of diners. »
13 Oct 2009
The Wigmore Hall never stands still: not content with having increased its audience by 300% over the past year, it now seeks both to reward its loyal patrons for their support in acquiring the Lease, and to bring in new audience members, with an innovative series of ten concerts where all the seats are priced at £10. »
13 Oct 2009
Bartlett Sher’s production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia has
proved one of the more admired stagings of the Peter Gelb regime, but
I’ve avoided it due to a surfeit of Barbieres and to fond
memories of the John Cox production on Robin Wagner’s delicious turntable
set, about as ideal a Barbiere as could be imagined. »
11 Oct 2009
In the opera house, stagings can impress by gorgeous sets and costumes. But in semi-staged performances, there's no where to hide behind. Semi-staging tests whether a director understands the music and what its dramatic soul might be. In dramaturgy, less is more. »
11 Oct 2009
The full five-act version of Verdi’s historical epic, Don Carlo, makes for a long evening, but thanks to some fine singing and to the driving sweep of the baton of Semyon Bychkov this four-and-a-half hour performance raced by. »
11 Oct 2009
There is something quote refreshing about the fact that a staging as characterful as Jonathan Miller's 27-year-old “New York Mafia” Rigoletto is the nearest thing to a warhorse that ENO has in its repertoire. »
11 Oct 2009
In the otherwise silent sixteen years between La fanciulla del west (1910) and Turandot (1926) Puccini had a flirtation with operetta, La rondine (1917) and with the quick and easy drama of the short story in his three one-acts, Il trittico (1918), composed as a one-evening cycle. »
11 Oct 2009
Robert Wilson staged Salome at La Scala in 1987, installing a troop of student actors on the stage to enact some sort of abstract action flow that had no discernible relationship to the Salome libretto, meanwhile sung by concert dressed opera stars huddled on a corner of the stage. »
11 Oct 2009
It’s three down and one to go in the first-ever staging of Richard
Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen at Los Angeles Opera. Following the
premiere of Siegfried, the third installment of this epic work of
music theater, it’s clear that director/designer Achim Freyer is a
hands-down winner. »
09 Oct 2009
In the end the performance does not rescue the dreary new production — still, the reason to visit the Met’s new Tosca is Karita Mattila’s bravura if wrongheaded interpretation of the title role. »
06 Oct 2009
This wasn't an ordinary concert but something very special. The Wigmore Hall was honouring Imogen Cooper on her 60th birthday. She is greatly loved here, both as soloist and as partner in song recitals. The atmosphere was electric. The house was packed, with many famous pianists and singers in the audience. It was a historic occasion, but it felt like a party among friends. »
04 Oct 2009
SFO general director David Gockley has a mania for developing new audiences — last year The Bonesetter’s Daughter was aimed at enticing the Asian American community into the opera house, and Porgy and Bess encouraged the African American community to cross the threshold. »
03 Oct 2009
Over 100 years ago, Adolphe Appia sketched designs for Tristan und Isolde that have influenced theatre design from Alfred Roller to Wieland Wagner. Appia's vision came to life on stage at the Royal Opera House this week. This new production has far deeper roots in tradition than its detractors realize.
»
30 Sep 2009
The complexity of staging Puccini's evening of three one-act operas, Il Trittico, has kept this masterpiece from appearing on opera stages as frequently as, say, Turandot or Tosca. »
24 Sep 2009
This programme of mostly solemn, elevated music based around songs on such themes as Evening, Death and Immutability was part of Matthias Goerne’s ‘Journey with Schubert’ during which he is recording the songs on eleven CDs and presenting the series in recitals all over the world. If the singing on this occasion is anything to go by, these recordings are set to become the standard to which other singers should aspire. »
![Maria Antunez as Rosa and Alfredo Daza as Tadeo [Photo by Robert Millard courtesy of Los Angeles Opera]](http://www.operatoday.com/SwR1225.gif)