20 Sep 2009
When Matthias Goerne sings, it’s never superficial. Lieder is a genre that needs almost as much engagement from listeners as from performers. “It's like a church in there”, someone said to me about the Wigmore Hall. “They’re really listening”. »
20 Sep 2009
Schubert’s first song-cycle is a perfect choice with which to open a
new concert season, and the Wigmore Hall was packed on Friday evening in
anticipation of this recital by tenor Mark Padmore, much admired for the focus
and concentration of his ‘story-telling’, and Paul Lewis, one of
the most expressive and poetic of pianists today. »
20 Sep 2009
Bampton Classical Opera have two areas of specialism: little-known gems of the late eighteenth-century and ‘opera in adversity’. »
20 Sep 2009
A massive female figure fills the whole stage at the ENO for Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, in this amazing production from La Fura del Bas. (Alex Ollé). This production is so inherently dramatic that it brings Ligeti's "anti-opera" onto a new level as theatre.art. . »
15 Sep 2009
Chamber opera is coming back after a period when it appeared to be confined to experimental works. »
15 Sep 2009
‘It’s a personal choice’ / ‘Of course he won - he was the only one who sang songs’ / ‘I’ll be happy if anyone but the first one wins’ (he won) / ‘There’s only one possible choice - the third one’ (he came second) »
06 Sep 2009
“Opera has so much to give” says Christof Loy, whose new production of Tristan und Isoldeopens at the Royal Opera House on 29th September. This opera is so familiar that everyone assumes they know it. But Loy’s approach involves going straight back to the score, and to the inherent drama in the music. “I don’t like superficial distractions". »
06 Sep 2009
“Can it be?”“It can’t!”“But it is; he looks just like him…” »
06 Sep 2009
On the surface, the theme of this Prom seemed to be Sci Fi movies at the Proms. Both Ligeti's Atmosphères and Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra became huge hits when Stanley Kubrick used them in 2001 : A Space Odyssey. So how did Mahler's *Kindertotenlieder* fit in ? »
06 Sep 2009
The Wagner Festspiel loves to provoke. »
06 Sep 2009
In 2001, when Seattle Opera completed its current production of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, it seemed the company had taken a step backward. In appearance the new Ring — the third full SO staging since Glynn Ross set out to make the city the American counterpart to Germany’s Bayreuth — was traditional. »
06 Sep 2009
For the eighteenth program of its seventy-fifth anniversary season the Grant Park Music Festival under the direction of its principal conductor Carlos Kalmar gave two performances of Sir Edward Elgar’s monumental oratorio for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, The Dream of Gerontius. »
30 Aug 2009
Central City stages luminous Lucia
There’s the sextet, the greatest “hit” in all of opera when Caruso was in the cast, and there’s the “Mad Scene,” that exercise in vocal acrobatics that brought new glory to bel canto when the opera was new in Naples in 1835. »
30 Aug 2009
Fidelio is not just any opera. But then, Beethoven is not just any composer. His only opera — unless one counts Leonore as a work in itself — confounds bureaucratic expectations. »
30 Aug 2009
Each year, the tiny Tuscan village Torre del Lago hosts a festival dedicated to its favorite son, Giacomo Puccini. This year’s Puccini Festival (10 July - 30 August) featured a “new” Manon Lescaut (a co-production with Opera del Nice Theater), its premiere garnering standing ovations for Marcello Giordani and Martina Serafin and accolades for Alberto Veronesi, the artistic director of the Festival. »
30 Aug 2009
De Staat is a seminally important work. So much modern music stems from it, not only “serious” classical music but progressive popular music too. It “is” music theatre, for it’s designed to be experienced live, the visual effect part of the action. »
23 Aug 2009
August is when Italians immerse themselves in the primal soup of all life. Hordes swarm to the Mediterranean shores and multitudes arrive in Pesaro on the Adriatic, where just then crowds of Rossinians from around the world arrive to partake of their primal operatic soup. »
23 Aug 2009
Everyone once in a while, we veteran opera-goers are privileged to see a promising artist give a break-out performance that announces a giant step forward into major stardom.
»
17 Aug 2009
It is never easy to revive a success. Audiences will remember the first run of a show and consciously or not, compare a revival with earlier favorable impressions. »
17 Aug 2009
What drives Harrison Birtwistle to Greek myth? Orpheus is a primal archetype. When he played his lyre he tamed wild beasts and made mountains move. But he suffered. He journeyed into Hades but could not bring Eurydice, his beloved, back to life. In some versions of the myth, his talent enraged the jealous who tore him apart. Yet even then, his head remained intact, still singing. He symbolizes the power of music, and the fate of an artist. »
09 Aug 2009
You need three or, ideally, four top-flight bel canto specialists to do anything like justice to Rossini’s Semiramide, his last and grandest Italian score. Otherwise why go to the expense? »
06 Aug 2009
L’inganno is this year’s theme at the Sferisterio Festival in Macerata, Italy. »
05 Aug 2009
Why — they always ask — why — present
Les Huguenots? »
02 Aug 2009
Paris Opera seems to posit the question: Does anyone completely understand what Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger is about? »
01 Aug 2009
Can a famously successful movie be made into an effective opera? A
quick answer is: yes! »
29 Jul 2009
The performance of lieder is a partnership between singer and pianist. In May I heard Julius Drake redeem an indifferent recital by the sheer beauty of his playing. I’ve been listening to him for more than 15 years. He’s a favorite. So I was completely taken by surprise by this recital »
27 Jul 2009
A fine-sounding Santa Fe Opera orchestra, excellently conducted by Frédéric
Chaslin, was barely into the haunting, delicate prelude to Act I of La
traviata, when a funeral procession, wet umbrellas unfurled, arrived to
wend its way though a stage full of big grey marble rectangular boxes,
handsomely abstracted tomb shapes, soon to be the courtesan Violetta
Valéry’s destination. So much for the Prelude to Act I. »
22 Jul 2009
There she is, in her inch or two of sarong, floating, floating…Oh, excuse me, where was I? »
21 Jul 2009
There are rare times when a critic can just enjoy, and say “Wow!” »
21 Jul 2009
Tosca is the quintessential Roman opera, with a plot located in
three infamous landmarks of Rome, its 1900 premiere in Rome was bound to be
enormously successful. »
20 Jul 2009
Were someone looking to assemble a musical Dream Team to thrill us to the core with Wagner’s Lohengrin, one would need look no further than the assembled forces currently on stage at Munich's Bavarian State Opera. »
19 Jul 2009
The Proms reach people all over the world, bringing them together for a kind of international street party, celebrating a shared love of music. If the arts make us more human and humane, then the BBC Proms are a force for good. »
19 Jul 2009
The Aix Festival imagines itself one of Europe’s great festivals, defining itself as the crossroads of European culture. »
19 Jul 2009
This year’s program at the Aix-en-Provence Festival includes
Götterdämmerung, the much-anticipated final installment of the
Ring co-sponsored by Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Osterfestspiele Salzburg. »
19 Jul 2009
At the festival of Aix-en-Provence, now in its sixty-first year, the final installment of Wagner’s “Ring,” with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, has hogged the spotlight. »
19 Jul 2009
‘I never left a theatre more contented, and all night I dreamed of The Creation of the world.’ — the view of one of those at the first performance of The Creation in 1799. »
19 Jul 2009
A roster of exciting young artists supported by the Concertgebouw Orchestra
in the pit, ensured that Amsterdam’s Carmen worked its
usual spell. »
14 Jul 2009
Music-masters, singing lessons and serenading bands all abound in
Rossini’s comic masterpiece, Il Barbiere di Sivilglia, but at
this performance it was the medical rather than the musical puns which drew the
loudest laughs. »
12 Jul 2009
This revival of Jonathan Kent’s 2006 production of Tosca brings to an end the ROH’s ‘Italian Season’ in fine style. »
07 Jul 2009
Absence of plot is by no means an impediment in opera. »
04 Jul 2009
Ravenna once served as the capital of the Roman Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries C.E. »
03 Jul 2009
For Americans of older generations Porgy and Bess is surely a primal experience, formed by the 1959 Otto Preminger film with Sammy Davis Jr. as Sportin’ Life, the audio recording derived from the 1952 London production with Leontyne Price as Bess, and a first encounter with Porgy and Bess as an opera in the artistically satisfying, and well traveled 1976 Houston production (was it twenty-five performances in the War Memorial Opera House?). »
03 Jul 2009
The success of Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ 2009 festival season reflects the intelligent leadership of both the previous triumvirate (Charles MacKay, Colin Graham, and Stephen Lord) and the new recruits Timothy O’Leary and James Robinson. »
![Rolando Villazón [Photo © Gabo / Deutsche Grammophon]](http://www.operatoday.com/Villazon.png)