Opera Today

Handel's Julius Caesar in Denver

"Trouser role" in "Caesar" fits mezzo-soprano Blythe aims for convincing portrayal in Handel work

By Kyle MacMillan [Denver Post, 6 Feb 05]

Stephanie Blythe recalls exactly where she was 10 years ago when she fully grasped the power of great acting in opera.

Then an apprentice artist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the mezzo-soprano was standing offstage about 25 feet from famed tenor Placido Domingo as he sang a love duet in "Die Walküre" with soprano Deborah Voigt.

"He was right there," she said, "just looking at her with all this love in his heart, and I totally believed this man was 20 years old and in love for the first time."

Blythe will try to bring that same kind of convincing acting, not to mention one of today's most acclaimed operatic voices, to her debut Saturday in the title role of George Frideric Handel's "Julius Caesar."

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Carmen at Opera Australia

Bizet classic's feminist makeover

Iain Shedden [The Australian, 7 Feb 05]

IT would come as a shock to opera-goers if the cast of Carmen were suddenly to break into a chorus of Sisters are Doing it for Themselves.

They might be forgiving, however, once they heard the gospel-tinged tones of American mezzosoprano Andrea Baker, who sings the title role in the Opera Australia production that begins a six-week run under the baton of Russian conductor Alexander Polianichko at the Sydney Opera House tonight.

Certainly the song, thematically speaking, wouldn't be out of place in director Lindy Hume's interpretation of Bizet's opera, which brings a feminist slant to the powerful love story. And Baker, who sings the blues when she's not engaged in opera, would easily do justice to the Annie Lennox/ Aretha Franklin original.
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Venus and Adonis at Seattle

Titian: Venus and Adonis (c. 1555 - 1560)

A little naughty music: Early Music Guild explores Restoration England

By Melinda Bargreen [Seattle Times, 6 Feb 05]

It may not have been the best of times or the worst of times, but it was certainly among the naughtiest of times.

Restoration England, which marked the end of Cromwell's Puritan regime with the accession of merry monarch Charles II, was an era that makes Paris Hilton seem like a convent girl and "Sex and the City" like a school picnic. In Charles II's reign, all the prohibitions of Cromwell's era were repealed; the theaters were reopened, low-cut lace replaced buttoned-up wool, and the royal motto was evidently "thou shalt party hearty."

A rarity of that era, John Blow's "Venus and Adonis," was premiered around 1683 before the king and his courtiers, with one of the king's many concubines portraying Venus. (That was Moll Davis, a well-known actress and singer dubbed "the most impertinent slut in the world" by Puritan chronicler John Evelyn.) The role of Cupid went to Lady Mary Tudor, the love child of Moll Davis by Charles II.

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Roll Over Stockhausen

Classical music could even become the new rock'n'roll

After decades of modernist tyranny, composers want to be popular again

Martin Kettle [The Guardian, 1 Feb 05]

When did the music die? And why? It will be 30 years in August since the death of Dmitri Shostakovitch. Next year also marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Britten. Aaron Copland, older than both of them, lived on until 1990 and Olivier Messiaen until 1992. But apart from these?

I can see them already. The protestations on behalf of the half-forgotten and semi-famous, the advocates of Henze and Berio, the followers of Tavener and Adès. Perhaps there will be a good word for Golijov or Gubaidulina, for Piazzola or Saariaho (enthusiasms I share). And maybe, even now, there remains someone who believes that Stockhausen should be mentioned in the same breath as Bach, the last of the true believers clinging to the shipwreck of modernism.

Whatever happened to the composers? Last Saturday, the BBC relayed a broadcast from New York of Puccini's Turandot, the opera featuring the most famous aria of them all, Nessun Dorma. Yet Turandot, left unfinished on the composer's death in 1924, is also the grand finale of Italian opera. For around three centuries, operas poured from the pens of Italian composers and found lasting places in the repertoire. After Turandot, there has not been one in 80 years of which that could be said.

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Gruberova Performs Norma at the Wiener Staatsoper

Gruberova: Belcanto als Seelendrama

VON GERHARD KRAMER [Die Presse 7 Feb 05]

Für Edita Gruberova hat die Staatsoper eine konzertante Fassung von Vicenzo Bellinis "Norma" aufs Programm gesetzt.

Endlose Begeisterung, Blumen, Stan ding ovations dankten Edita Gruberova und ihren Mitstreitern für einen packenden Opernabend, der die szenische Aufbereitung keinen Augenblick vermissen liess. Gerne verzichtete man darauf, die zeitgebundene Schauerromantik der Druiden und ihrer Opferriten anno 50 v. Chr. leibhaftig vor sich zu sehen. Und mehr noch: Keine Regie-Eitelkeit lenkte von der puren Musik ab.

Denn gerade hier, in Bellinis Chef d'oeuvre (1831), spielt sich ja das Seelendrama der Titelheldin als sündige Priesterin, verlassene Geliebte und verzweifelte Mutter fast ausschliesslich im tragischen Aufschrei, den wildgezackten Fiorituren aber auch den verhaltenen Lyrismen der Singstimme ab. Dieser enormen Anforderung hat sich Gruberova vor kurzem erstmals gestellt. Und sie wird ihr - als Höhepunkt ihrer jahrzehntelangen Beschäftigung mit dem Belcanto - heute in hoher Vollkommenheit gerecht. Besonders faszinierend: Die enorme Spannweite zwischen der dramatischen Kraft der Ausbrüche und der gewohnten Meisterschaft im Ausspinnen zartester, berührendster Pianissimo-Phrasen auch des "messa di voce", des verhaltenen Ansetzens einzelner Töne und ihres An- und Abschwellens. Unverändert ist auch die lockere Brillanz der Koloraturen; woran es ein wenig mangelt, ist die Substanz in der Tiefe, die die Gruberova durch quasi "naturalistisches" Sprechen kaschiert. Insgesamt eine grosse Leistung, die an berühmten Vorbildern zu messen allzu billig wäre.

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Das Wachsfigurenkabinett at the Münchner Reaktorhalle

Verliebte Witwe
Hartmann-Opern in der Reaktorhalle

[Merkur Online 4 Feb 05]

Ein buntes Schaubudenprogramm, anmoderiert von zwei Damen in knackigen Kostümen, so präsentieren sich die fünf Kurzopern von Karl Amadeus Hartmanns "Das Wachsfigurenkabinett" in der Münchner Reaktorhalle (Regie: Stefan Spies). Der Inszenierung des ersten Stücks "Der Mann, der vom Tode auferstand" fehlt noch Witz und Schwung. Die Geschichte vom reichen Fabrikanten, der vor seinem Radiogerät einschläft und das Hörspiel von der Arbeiterrevolution für Wirklichkeit hält, leidet an den Schaufel schwingend auftretenden, plump marschierenden Arbeitern.

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Phoenix Rising — The Reconstruction of the Wiener Staatsoper

"Aus Burg und Oper": Krönung und Thronbesteigung

VON WILHELM SINKOVICZ [Die Presse 5 Feb 05]

Die brennende Staatsoper - und deren Wiederauferstehung: Berühmt-berüchtigte Bilder zur Zeitgeschichte.

Hier spielt das Burgtheater", tönte Raoul Aslan angesichts des unzer störten Etablissements Ronacher im April 1945. Die Delegation, angeführt vom damaligen Direktionsassistenten (und heutigen Josefstadt-Gesellschafter) Heinrich Kraus und Aslan als sprachgewaltigem Theaterdirektor, war nach dem verheerenden Bombenangriff vom 12. März 1945, bei dem nicht nur das Burgtheater, sondern auch die Staatsoper zerstört wurden, auf der Suche nach möglichen Spielstätten. Tatsächlich hob sich Ende April '45, als der Krieg noch gar nicht zu Ende war, mit Grillparzers "Sappho" erstmals im Ronacher der Vorhang. Für das Staatsopernensemble begann die Nachkriegszeit im Theater an der Wien. Die Stammhäuser konnten erst 1955 renoviert wieder ihrer Bestimmung übergeben werden. Kurz nach Abschluss des Staatsvertrags zelebrierte man sinnigerweise die Wieder-Eröffnung der Burg wieder mit Grillparzer: Die Wahl musste auf "König Ottokars Glück und Ende" fallen - mit dem legendären, umjubelten "Loblied auf österreich".

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SMART: Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera

Mary Ann Smart is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a scholar investigating her topics through the lens of feminist gender study. There is no indication in the book that she is or has ever been a performing artist or director, a situation I will return to later. The time line she lays out as her area of interest stretches from the development of Auber and Scribe's La Muette de Portici, commonly held to be the very first French Grand Opera, to the later works of Wagner and Verdi — several of which, not so coincidentally perhaps, were influenced by the concerns of Grand Opera — in other words, the bulk of the nineteenth century. Although Smart does not articulate this in so many words, this century saw the union in stage performance of the gesture- and pose-based system of acting in general use since at least the eighteenth century (if not several centuries earlier when indoor theater developed in Europe) with the Romantic compositional style wherein music described in detail the emotions of the character and suggested the gait, posture, gesture and physical relationship of the character to other characters on stage. By the end of Verdi and Wagner's careers (and largely because of Wagner), she sees music as having abandoned mimetic description in favor of psychological character exploration, although I think a good case can be made for Strauss's "big three," Salome (1905), Elektra (1909), and Rosenkavalier (1911) as being filled with quite specific musical depiction of movement and gesture.

Smart begins with Auber's Muette for two happily coincidental reasons: that it is the first Grand Opera and therefore not involved with stylized mythological or heroic characters, and that its voiceless heroine Fenella has no means of expression other than mime to musical accompaniment. Her description of the creative process, and particularly of the drastic cuts taken in Fenella's lengthy mime sequences before the premiere (when the language of mime as it existed in 1828 proved inadequate to express abstract concepts) is fascinating. But it is here that the first red flag goes up concerning Ms Smart's scholarship: in two separate places she states definitively that Fenella is the ONLY such character in opera, having obviously never heard of the title character in Rimsky-Korsakov's Mlada (a spectral mute portrayed by a dancer); of Toby in Menotti's The Medium, the mute assistant to Mme Flora whose entire role is mimed; or of the many, many mute characters in the one act Intermezzi of the 18th century like Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona, where the convention was to have one male singer, one female singer and one mime as the entire cast; or of the magnificent episode in Les Troyens when the widowed Andromache and her young son come before the Trojan populace in a wholly mimed scene whose music clearly describes their demeanor and movement.

One problem seems to me that Smart isn't an experienced theatrical practitioner. In her chapter on Bellini,, et al., she backs off the topic of expression by physical gesture to a discussion of expression through non-verbal but still vocal means: sighs, moans, groans and sobs as supported by onomatopoeic orchestral writing. Such blatant imitation was disparaged as simplistic and inartistic by contemporary commentators and Smart the theorist has difficulty acknowledging that the overwhelmingly effective nature of Bellini's or Verdi's sighs and tears is precisely because of the orchestra's faithful imitation of non-verbal human emotional utterance. No experienced singer, conductor or director would have any problem here and one begins to question the value of Smart's interlude in the orchestra pit and away from the stage.

Smart gets back on track when discussing the fully mature Verdi's use of musical/gestural climaxes for closed numbers so as to end them in a definitive way that precludes the formulaic cabalettas he had come to dread. She is most involved with Violetta (a woman of ambiguous social status fighting a body failing due to disease), Amelia (Ballo in Maschera, a woman fighting to control her body's adulterous erotic urges), Elizabeth and Carlos (Don Carlos, same situation as Amelia complicated by Carlos's neurotic physicality), and Aida (a woman of high rank captive in an alien world and forced into the pose of a slave).

It is in the climactic chapter on Wagner that Ms Smart scores most effectively, linking the composer's turn from "outer drama" to "inner drama" with the transformation of operatic music from describing action and movement, to a rhapsodic evocation of mood and erotic longing. Yet even here, she neglects the one great mimed episode in Tannhauser that that would not only nail her thesis conclusively but would also involve her gender study in perfect combination. It occurs just after Elisabeth has finished her prayer by the roadside shrine in act 3:

bq. She remains for some time in devout rapture. As she slowly rises, she sees Wolfram who approaches to speak to her. She entreats him by a gesture not to do so. [Wolfram: "Elizabeth, may I not walk beside you?"] Elizabeth again expresses to him by gesture that she thanks him for his faithful love, but that her way leads to heaven where she has a high purpose to fulfill; he must therefore let her depart alone and not follow her. She ascends halfway up the height and disappears gradually on the footpath toward the Wartburg.

[translation by Rodney Bloomer, copyright 1988 for the English National Opera]

It is one of the most demanding moments for an actress in Wagner, the music expressing the "rapture" of the moment while the soprano has exactly the kind of abstract concepts to convey that were the cause of such difficulty to Auber and Scribe. And as she is on her way, in effect, to give her life in exchange for the salvation of Tannhauser's soul, the purpose of Woman in Romantic opera, a major issue in gender study in opera, was there just waiting for Smart to dig in.

The book is well illustrated with musical examples integrated into the text rather than relegated to an appendix (and the notes, stretching to almost fifty pages, are both interesting and well composed), but is surprisingly short on visual examples of the very poses and gestures that are supposed to be the heart of the study. In particular, Smart has never heard of — or has chosen to ignore — Francois Delsarte (1811-1871), whose acting system dominated the stage in the nineteenth century. An externally applied repertory of what we would now consider melodramatic claptrap, the Delsarte System generated charts of hand movements and gestures, as well as sets of photographs employing contemporary actors demonstrating each pose that could have been a valuable resource here. When I mentioned this omission to a director and acting teacher whose career spans the U.S. and The Royal; Shakespeare Company (where they know a thing or three about externally applied acting technique) she was amazed that anyone writing on the subject would not include Delsarte.

"Mimomania" (a term used by Nietzsche in connection with Wagner) is an interesting but flawed, occasionally unfocused look at the emotional power of Romantic music in conjunction with a vanished acting style that worked with it hand in glove. It is a fascinating topic if only because Romantic opera remains the core repertory of most opera houses. This subject still awaits a satisfying major study.

William Fregosi
Technical Coordinator for Theater Arts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Star Cross'd Lovers In LA

Anna Netrebko	Rolando Villazón
	Photo: © Mark Kessel 2004

Roméo et Juliette, Music Center, Los Angeles

By Allan Ulrich [Financial Times]
Published: February 2 2005 02:00 | Last updated: February 2 2005 02:00

Stale marzipan it may be, but given the appropriate set of protagonists, Charles Gounod's ponderous 1867 adaptation of Shakespeare's youthful tragedy still has the power to arouse the senses and engage, if not engulf, the soul. In Rolando Villazón and Anna Netrebko, the Los Angeles Opera has found doomed lovers who are as much star material as "star cross'd". Whatever else is lacking in the first west coast production of the opera here in 18 years, the Mexican tenor and Russian soprano radiate youthful ardour, stylistic sophistication and sheer theatrical magic.

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Verona in Waltz Time

by ALAN RICH [LA Weekly February 4 - 10, 2005]

MUD AND SUGAR

If there must be Gounod -- a point I will argue -- let it be thus. The mud and sugar of his Roméo et Juliette do not entirely disappear behind the splendor of the L.A. Opera's performance, but that night at the opera is, indeed, a dream happenstance. If you come away more oppressed by humidity than by heat, the fault resides in the opera's original formulators, not in the team currently at work at the Music Center. They have done their work well. Anna Netrebko sings the Juliet, and what comes out -- most of all in her Waltz number, which is the only tune anyone remembers from this very long opera -- is the stuff of moonbeams. Rolando Villazón, the Romeo, is a dreamboat who sings like an angel while climbing ladders onto balconies and into hearts. There's a scene in bed, with paired bare abs and pecs all agleam in dawn's early light; yum. Marc Barrard sings of Queen Mab, trippingly and with high delight; Suzanna Guzman is a delightfully crusty Nurse in the few lines the creators have left her; Anna-Maria Panzarella steals a small scene in the song for Stephano (Balthasar in Shakespeare).

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The Players Let Loose

Electrifying 'Roméo et Juliette' Lights Up the Stage

by Marc Porter Zasada [LA Downtown News Online]

An opera fan lives for those few thrilling moments: a rising tenor finds his full voice, a soprano proves passionate and unafraid, a duet soars off the stage. All that and more occurred on opening night of Roeo et Juliette last week, when Los Angeles Opera offered an electrifying new production of Charles Gounod's very French version of the English bard's story set in Italy.

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Democracy: An American Comedy in Washington

Ulysses S. Grant
Thomas LeClear (1818-1882)
Oil on canvas, circa 1880

Lost in Translation From Novels
To Play and Then Opera

By HEIDI WALESON [Wall Street Journal]
February 1, 2005; Page D8

Washington

How is it possible that a new opera crammed with hot-button subjects -- political corruption, ecclesiastical self-satisfaction, feminism, homosexuality -- could be a blandly inoffensive entertainment? "Democracy: An American Comedy," by composer Scott Wheeler and librettist Romulus Linney, commissioned by the Washington National Opera and given its world premiere last weekend, was disappointingly safe. Its provocative themes were smothered by a talky libretto that alternated between earnest exposition and sitcom jokes, set in smoothly tonal, insipid musical language.

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An Evening of Soprana and Mezzo Duets at the Barbican

Bonney/Kirchschlager

Erica Jeal [Guardian]
Tuesday February 1, 2005

There are many profound experiences to be had in a concert hall, but an evening of soprano and mezzo duets isn't one of them. Still, on the disc they brought out last autumn, Barbara Bonney, Angelika Kirchschlager and accompanist Malcolm Martineau managed to pick out some of the more interesting numbers in this frothy repertoire. Many of those made it into this recital - along with lashings of sugary charm, a few girly hugs and a line in the programme from Kirchschlager about how it wasn't only their voices fitting together but their souls, too. Yeuch.

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BELLINI: I Capuleti e I Montecchi

Cristina Gallardo-Domas	Daniela Barcellona

I Capuleti e I Montecchi
Vincenzo Bellini, music and Felice Romani, libretto
Premiere opera DVD 5269
Soloists, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Guido Adjmone-Marsan, conductor

Surely the reader of this reviewer is passionate about opera - why else, faithful one, have you found yourself at the fount of information and wisdom knows as Opera Today? Therefore, the need for an outfit such as Premiere Opera need not be belabored - true opera lovers know that there sometimes arises a need to have a performance that cannot easily be obtained, and that need may trump the desire to have the recording, (whether only audio, or visual as well, as in the case of this DVD) be of optimal quality.

So what we have here is a performance of April 7, 2002, at the Teatro Cuyas in the lovely Canary Islands. The opera is Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi, and the star gracing the stage as the lovely young Capulet is Cristina Gallardo-Domas. Perhaps it is her fans who will be most grateful to Premiere Opera for making available a record of the performance. Not to be slighted, however, is her imposing Romeo, a mezzo/trouser role. Daniela Barcellona is a rising star, and the reasons why are evident here. And Bellini lovers, as your reviewer knows well, are apt to want most any document of the master's work, as the operas get performances but not as often as his fans might wish.

For the modest price Premiere Opera asks, a modest reward is received. The audio and picture are not ideal, to say the least. The audio, thankfully, is acceptable - the Teatro Cuyas orchestra (otherwise unnamed) responds with sweet enthusiasm to the leadership of maestro Adjmone-Marsan, who resists the urge to pull the tempo around. Bellini's long melodic lines flow with gentle urgency, and the singers always seem to be right with the beat.

Visually, there are two problems, only one of which is on Premiere Opera's debit sheet. The DVD is apparently a copy of a video produced in house by three cameras, so there are, thankfully, a small number of angles. However, the picture in closer views takes on a fuzzy fog the shade of whatever color is predominant in the background - mostly blue, but pink in Juliet's act one bedroom scene. From a distance the color is more distinct, but the figures are less well delineated.

The staging, however, is so bland that a viewer can't regret the less than satisfactory picture all that much. Basically a unit-set of stone block walls, the stage is bare in most scenes - excepting a regal seat for Juliet's father in the first act, a bed for Juliet later, and the a slab for her body in the final scene. The costumes are traditional and appear, to the extent they can be fairly evaluated, tasteful and appropriate.

Despite the visual flaws, having something to look at is still rewarding as the two leads spin out some fine singing. Barcellona, a tall, strongly-built woman, has wonderfully strong breath control for Bellini's extended lines, and though the voice can't be called remarkably colorful, the basic tone captures all we need to know about Romeo's passion and callowness.

Gallardo-Domas embodies Juliet with simple gestures and effortless vocal beauty. Romani's libretto comes nowhere near Shakespeare's in the complexity of the characterization, especially as Juliet is concerned, but then again, the opera is based on the sources Shakespeare drew from, and not on the Bard's play. For example, Tybalt (Tebaldo here) survives and grieves with Romeo over Juliet's supposed death. For all that, Gallardo-Domas's talent makes her the focus of every scene in which she appears.

And it must be said that other than the opera title, date of performance and theatre name, Premiere Opera has offered this review copy with no other documentation of any kind. The singers and conductor as identified were found through online research by your reviewer. Unfortunately, the very good performers who bring Juliet's father and Friar Laurence to life could not be identified. The tenor who takes on Tebaldo is a Giorgio Casciari. He sings with fair power though not much elegance. Unfortunately, he is also about half as tall as Barcellona, which gives the act two duet/aborted duel between the two a comic aspect.

So with this Capuleti DVD a good performance of a very good opera with a mostly young, skilled cast has been preserved, though not as well preserved as one might have hoped. Sometimes the opera lover has to accept such limitations, and the right performance will even make said lover forget any flaws of presentation. For fans of Bellini or perhaps Gallardo-Domas, this DVD may be one such performance.

Chris Mullins

Seattle Opera Announces 2005/06 Season

McCaw Hall
Photo: CDi Engineers

[February 1, 2005] Seattle--Seattle Opera's general director, Speight Jenkins, officially announced the company's 2005/06 season today. The season opens October 15, 2005, with American composer Jake Heggie's most recent — and newly revised — opera, The End of the Affair. In January, Seattle Opera presents Johann Strauss, Jr.'s ever-popular operetta, Die Fledermaus, featuring a trio of Wagnerians — soprano Jane Eaglen, tenor Alan Woodrow, and Richard Berkeley-Steele — in a comic turn. Jonathan Miller's production of Mozart's Così fan tutte follows in February and March 2006. In May, the season concludes with a new production of Verdi's Macbeth, bringing together for the first time director Bernard Uzan and designer Robert Israel.

Since Seattle Opera will present Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen in the summer of 2005, the 2005/06 season is a four-opera subscription season rather than the customary five-opera season. Among the artists making Seattle Opera debuts during the 2005/06 season are:

Composer: Jake Heggie (The End of the Affair)

Conductor: Nicola Luisotti (Macbeth)

Director: Leonard Foglia (The End of the Affair)

Set Designer: Michael McGarty (The End of the Affair)

Costume Designer: Jess Goldstein (The End of the Affair)

Lighting Designer: Donald Holder (The End of the Affair)

Sopranos: Sarah Coburn (Adele in Die Fledermaus), Alexandra Deshorties and Jessica Jones (Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Opening Night cast and Sunday/Friday cast respectively), Julie Makerov
(Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, Sunday/Friday cast), Dana Beth Miller (Sarah Miles in The End of the Affair, Sunday/Friday cast), and Elena Zelenskaya (Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Sunday/Friday
cast)

Mezzo-Sopranos: Christine Rice and Maria Zifchak (Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Opening Night cast and Sunday/Friday cast respectively).

Tenors: Joseph Calleja (Macduff in Macbeth), Don Frazure (Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Sunday/ Friday cast), and Roger Honeywell (Gabriel von Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Sunday/Friday cast)

Baritones: Zeljko Lucic (Macbeth in Macbeth, Sunday/Friday cast), James Bobick (Maurice Bendrix in The End of the Affair, Sunday/Friday cast), and Brett Polegato (Henry Miles in The End of the Affair)

Bass-Baritone: Valarian Ruminski (Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Sunday/Friday cast)

Bass: Burak Bilgili (Banquo in Macbeth)

Click here for complete press release.

Jirí Belohlávek Named to Head BBCSO

'I'm here to raise the standard'

[Daily Telegraph] (Filed: 02/02/2005)

Jirí Belohlávek's appointment to lead the BBCSO will restore the orchestra's high profile, says Geoffrey Norris

The BBC Symphony Orchestra confirmed yesterday that its new chief conductor from the first night of the 2006 Proms will be the Czech maestro Jirí Belohlávek. It was known two and a half years ago that Leonard Slatkin would be standing down from the job at the end of last season's Proms, so the announcement about his successor has been a long time coming, but the welcome news of Belohlávek's appointment is not a surprise. I floated him as the most likely choice in an article on these pages back in July last year. It was a hunch, but one based on a reasoned study of the form book, since he seemed to have precisely the qualities that the BBC should be looking for.

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La traviata, Royal Opera House, London

By Andrew Clark [Financial Times]
Published: February 1 2005 02:00 | Last updated: February 1 2005 02:00

Verdi demanded three qualities for his "fallen woman": looks, anima (soul) and a good stage presence. What he did not want was a glossy prima donna. The part broke convention not just histrionically, in its depiction of a contemporary prostitute, but also vocally. It needs a soprano agile enough to throw off the Act 1 coloratura, and strong enough to meet the dramatic requirements of Acts 2 and 3. That's asking a lot, and most sopranos fall short. So it was fascinating, at the Royal Opera's latest revival on Saturday, to come across Norah Amsellem. She has period looks, a pretty smile, a malleable physiognomy. She knows how to adapt her whole demeanour to Violetta's changing situation, so that the figure we behold on stage is not an opera singer but a human being with the power to disarm us emotionally. That may be a gift of acting, but it also reflects Amsellem's complete identification with the music. Her soprano is a bit one-dimensional, especially at the top, and she proved a surprisingly plain letter-reader. In all other set-pieces she had the theatre spellbound. "Dite alla giovine" and "Addio, del passato" were especially effective: Amsellem sang them in a beautifully controlled half-voice, stretching the tempo to its very limit. Some might call it self-indulgent; to me it sounded like the truth.

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Aida at Copenhagen's New Opera House

Royal Danish Opera — Aida
Photo: Martin Mydtskov Rønne

Aida in a sleek Danish setting

By Richard Fairman [Financial Times]
Published: January 31 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 31 2005 02:00

Seen at night, the warmly lit interior of Copenhagen's new opera house glows invitingly across the water. The building is situated in a uniquely privileged position, opposite the Amalienborg Palace, lining up on an axis with the proudly domed Frederikskirken — so close to the city's heart that arias could easily waft over the water on an evening breeze.

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