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. »
02 Jul 2009
Bizet’s famed heroine Carmen returned this June to the place where it all began, in a critically-heralded new production by Adrian Noble. Frank Cadenhead was on hand to experience the staging held at the opulent newly-renovated Opéra Comique. »
29 Jun 2009
It’s not often that the accompanist is given top billing in a vocal recital, even when he’s the venue’s musical director. »
29 Jun 2009
Glyndebourne is the epitome of British opera festivals. Seventy-five years ago, John Christie founded the tradition of “country house opera”, where opera can be enjoyed in beautiful settings. »
29 Jun 2009
On the whole, I’d prefer the conspirators to be sitting on toilets
»
26 Jun 2009
With Götterdämmerung, a co-production with the Köln Opera House created by Robert Carsen (stage direction), Patrick Kinmonth (sets and costumes) and
Jeffrey Tate (conductor), La Fenice approaches completion of the
Ring cycle. »
26 Jun 2009
Four years have passed since the most celebrated American soprano of recent times, Renée Fleming, graced the stage at Covent Garden, in Elijah Moshinsky’s classic production of Otello. »
25 Jun 2009
Le Grand Macabre is the only opera of György Ligéti, one of the
major composers of the 20th century. »
24 Jun 2009
Much ink has been spilled over the failed Marta Domingo production of La
Traviata that San Francisco Opera inexplicably imported for its blatantly
audience baiting summer season (Traviata, Tosca, Porgy and Bess). »
24 Jun 2009
Amato Opera went to the netherworld of expired extravaganzas this spring, a
one-man operation whose one man was weary. As New York’s oldest
down-the-block and semi-pro company, it’s loss was regrettable —
though it’s many years since Amato gave up doing interesting repertory. »
24 Jun 2009
It is quite possible that Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is the leading summer opera destination in the United States. »
22 Jun 2009
A performance of sublime authority from Goerne and Eschenbach »
21 Jun 2009
Following the death of the American film director Anthony Minghella, ENO were left with a gap in the season vacated by the new production which he had been engaged to direct, and what better way to do so than by bringing back his immensely popular 2005 staging of Madam Butterfly? Minghella’s widow, Carolyn Choa (who has worked on the production from its original conception) was charged with resurrecting the production in tribute. »
21 Jun 2009
Last week (May 27), “without further a-don’t,” as she adorably puts it, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh, the world’s reigning traumatic soprano
— lately, she says, more of a soprano “spento” — bade a
last, lingering, loving farewell to her adoring public in a sold-out concert at
the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. »
21 Jun 2009
The Collegiate Chorale (ably supported by the orchestra of the New York City
Opera under George Manahan) chose Gluck’s Alceste, last heard in
New York at the City Opera in 1982, for its annual spring concert opera —
an excellent choice for a chorus eager to show its stuff. »
21 Jun 2009
Robert Carsen’s production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not new, as the La Scala playbill suggests. »
21 Jun 2009
La Cenerentola runs third in popularity among Rossini’s comic
operas — the Met didn’t get around to it at all until the present
staging was created for Cecilia Bartoli. »
21 Jun 2009
Very little is known about Giovanni Battista Draghi (or Drago, according to certain sources), known as Pergolesi. »
20 Jun 2009
To the sorrow of all lovers of baroque opera, J.S. Bach never composed for
the stage. »
19 Jun 2009
When Matthias Goerne was six, he heard Winterreise and was captivated. »
19 Jun 2009
Although there was considerable theatrical imagination on display, redemption was in critically short supply in Peter Konwitschny's production of The Flying Dutchman at Munich’s estimable Bavarian State Opera. »
18 Jun 2009
“Life is too important to be taken seriously” goes the motto. That could describe this cheerful production, just the right good humored tonic for these difficult times. »
18 Jun 2009
Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s early opera, Punch and Judy, premiered at Aldeburgh in 1968. Benjamin Britten reportedly walked out. Now Birtwistle is himself the pre-eminent British composer, whose work has long since become part of the Aldeburgh tradition. This year’s Festival opened with two Birtwistle premieres, The Corridor and Semper Dowland, simper dolens. »
17 Jun 2009
In a recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert featuring twentieth-century
instrumental and vocal compositions Ian Bostridge sang Benjamin Britten’s
Les Illuminations under the direction of principal conductor Bernard
Haitink. »
17 Jun 2009
Bostridge traded his fey haircut for slicked back Kray brothers look, complete with wrap round dark glasses in this Dreigroschenoper at the Barbican, London. »
17 Jun 2009
Strikes on the London Underground system may have made this a particularly exhausting and exasperating week for Londoners, but despite these wearing adversities Friday evening saw an eager crowd flock to the Wigmore Hall, in excited anticipation of an inspiring and invigorating blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar — and they were not disappointed. »
17 Jun 2009
Matthias Goerne and Christoph Eschenbach unite in a Schöne Müllerin of searing intensity. »
15 Jun 2009
The Austrian Ministry of Culture and the Committee for the Celebrations of
Haydn’s Bicentenary had a brilliant idea: on May 31st , the day of the
composer’s death, 20 symphony orchestras and/or opera houses performed
one of his greatest and best known oratorios Die Schöpfung (The
Creation) . »
14 Jun 2009
Where else in the world does one have three opera houses, all playing almost nightly for 10 months of the year? It’s one of the things that makes Berlin paradise for opera buffs. »
12 Jun 2009
Like Carmen, Tosca is a constant presence in our operatic lives, frequently revisited like it or not. »
09 Jun 2009
ENO's latest new production of Così — their third this decade — made the arts headlines from the start of its rehearsal period when director Abbas Kiarostami found himself unable to secure a UK visa and was forced to withdraw his direct involvement, leaving colleague Elaine Tyler-Hall to deputise. »
07 Jun 2009
The buzz was right — this new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London is shockingly different. Christof Loy's production is what minimalism should be. »
07 Jun 2009
Julius Drake’s Temple song series is almost a cult secret -not known to the mass market but highly regarded among those who know, much like the Lieder genre itself. »
26 May 2009
Joseph Haydn's place in the history of the oratorio has been secured by his masterpieces The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). His first appearance, however, on the Mount Parnassus of oratorio was a good quarter of a century beforehand with Il ritorno di Tobia. »
26 May 2009
The new Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Ruggero Leoncavallo “Pagliacci” reached the Teatro dell’Opera di Rome on May 19 : I will be on stage in the Italian capital every night until May 27th . Then, it will continue a worldwide tour: its debut was in Florence in the 2008 Fall. It has already visited Moscow and Athens. It is rumored to reach the MET next seasons. »
26 May 2009
“Pique Dame” (“Pivokaja Dama” or “The Queen of Spades”) is one of Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky most difficult, and most expensive, operas to produce. »
22 May 2009
English Touring Opera continued its 30th anniversary celebrations with six concert performances of Norma, sung — unusually for ETO — in Italian, in a touring footprint which has some common ground with the ongoing staged tour of Katya Kabanova and The Magic Flute, but which is effectively an entirely separate tour. »
22 May 2009
Tim Albery’s production was first seen at Opera North in 1993 and has not been revived since 1998, when it was the first production of this opera I ever saw — an English-sung version of the four-act Italian version. »