07 Sep 2005
First, you signed the waiver relieving the venue of any liability for your injury or death. Then, you were handed a flashlight and felt the chill in the air – not a typical cold draft but the prickly tingle that comes with unquiet spirits nearby. »
25 Aug 2005
It has taken 14 years for John Adams’ second opera to reach a British stage. Scottish Opera’s production of The Death of Klinghoffer at last goes boldly where no opera company in these islands has dared before (and one of them, Glyndebourne, shared in the original commission). »
25 Aug 2005
First performed in 1775, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos is a melodrama in the most literal sense of the word — a work for actors and orchestra in which music is deployed to heighten the effect of emotional declamation. Even though posterity has tended to play its influence down, many in the late 18th and early 19th centuries rated it as both a masterpiece and a major vehicle for a tragic actress. This performance revealed it to be a work of considerable power. »
25 Aug 2005
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – German writers Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s stylized 1928 masterpiece “The Threepenny Opera” is savagely cynical, sardonic, brittle and worldly wise—and wonderfully well-performed at the Odyssey Theater Ensemble, a tribute to savvy director Ron Sossi and a cast of 16 talented and eager performers. »
23 Aug 2005
As everyone knows, the art of the song recital is in decline. When you and I were young Maggie, Columbia Concerts and Community Concerts regularly sent vocal and other musical artists all around America providing a never fading rainbow of wonderful music, as great classical music performers educated and thrilled us with their art. For example, As a youth I once heard Leonard Warren give a recital in a high school auditorium in Webster Groves, Missouri, price of admission $5. I still have the ticket stub - and the memories. Kathleen Ferrier, Robert Casadesus Jennie Tourel and Guiomar Novaes performed in my town when I was a kid. »
19 Aug 2005
Benjamin Britten’s opera Curlew River was inspired by the Noh plays he saw on his 1956 visit to Japan, after which he asked his regular librettist, William Plomer, to adapt Sumidagawa for him. Eight years later, the opera was composed. Since it lasts only an hour and requires a highly stylised kind of performance, it has never been a favourite with regular opera houses, but it makes for excellent festival fare. The Edinburgh Festival has mounted its own production, directed by Olivier Py, which is well worth catching. »
12 Aug 2005
Mit h-moll in den Untergang. Die Zeit laeuft. Der Tod sitzt bereit. Geteilte Geigen in hoechster Hoehe, triste, abfallende Phrasen. Eine Frau in fuchsrotem Brokat und mit wirrem Haar platzt rueckwaerts in das leere Raumrund. Kruemmt sich, sinkt auf eine Bank, schaut fast erleichtert Freund Hein, einem weisshaarigen Alten, ins Auge. Anna Netrebko ist da. Violetta auch. Es kann losgehen. Die Salzburger "Traviata" hat seit zwei Minuten endlich begonnen. »
02 Aug 2005
On the evening of 28 July, I had the privilege to attend the Wiener Kammeroper's performance of Donizetti's Rita. Subtitled "The Battered Husband," this one act farce revolves around Rita, the owner of a cafe, and her husband Beppe (Jose Aparicio). »
14 Jul 2005
Like Glyndebourne, Aix treats Mozart and Rossini as “house” composers, but Rossini has traditionally taken second place. This summer, in Provence as much as in Sussex, Rossini comes off better. After its two disappointing Mozart productions in the Théâtre de l’Archevèche at the weekend, the Aix festival decamped to the gardens of a dilapidated but enchanted estate outside the town for an evening of pure joy, courtesy of a new Barber. »
07 Jul 2005
Central City – Perhaps because of its home in a small, historic mining town far from the two coasts, Central City Opera has long championed American opera. »
07 Jul 2005
There is one splendid reason to see Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucie de Lammermoor” at Glimmerglass Opera this season, and her name is Sarah Coburn. »
06 Jul 2005
I can only dimly imagine how this singular and arresting production was first greeted at Covent Garden back in 1991. To this newcomer’s eye it is still both amazingly original in its design and concept, and yet also oddly frustrating. Essentially, director Graham Vick and designer Paul Brown and their team created a world, half historic, half fantastic, and one is left with a visual memory replete with starkly simple blood-red sets, kaleidoscopically coloured bizarrely shaped costumes and arrowed shafts of silver light, almost painfully reflecting from armoured breastplates. The time is about 65 BC and the world is one of an old Asia Minor versus a rising Rome, with an ageing King Mitridate fighting off both martial and sexual invasions of his territories. The heavy, stylised, costumes — extravagant to the point of caricature — are in themselves a theatrical tool that both enable and yet also constrain the drama of this young Mozart’s early work. If the singers were disadvantaged physically by what they were wearing, they didn’t seem to show it — although to be fair none had to move at anything more than a dignified pace. It was the supporting actors/dancers, Kabuki-like, who supplied the human activity — including a memorable “a capella” rhythmic foot-stamping war-interlude. All other dramatic extremes — be it fevered love declaration, jealous rage or elegant death — was conducted in an almost balletic minimalism of physical effort. »
05 Jul 2005
Giacomo Puccini’s “La Boheme” is really a winter piece. It is the cold and the dark that draw seamstress Mimi together with poet Rodolfo. Christmas in Cafe Momus brings the illusion of warmth, though not even the spring of the last act can take the chill from dying Mimi’s hands. »
05 Jul 2005
LEWES, England, July 3 – Glyndebourne’s achievements are too various for one to speak of a company style, but there is certainly a Glyndebourne scent: of excellence and elegance, of singers and musicians enjoying at once the freedom gained by thorough rehearsal and the intimacy of a small, warm house. And its waft is strong, luxurious and exciting around the new production of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare,” which opened on Sunday afternoon. »
04 Jul 2005
The Santa Fe Opera waited almost 50 years to mount Puccini’s final opera, Turandot—a warhorse of a work full of color and pageantry, and a heart-breaking love story. Puccini died before he could finish the work, whose story comes from myth and fable. »
02 Jul 2005
When I was young, my father said: Don’t judge others before hearing them through, listen before interrupting. His advice applies so well to Wagnerian opera, with its potential for diverse interpretation. The greatest works of art have the power to speak beyond restricted parameters of space and time. We may have a preference for one style or another, but when we listen to a new production, it’s a good idea to listen to it for what it conveys on its own terms. Whether we like or dislike something isn’t ultimately the point, for we learn something along the way. »
30 Jun 2005
When Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims was rediscovered more than two decades ago, its musical brilliance was immediately recognised. But its almost nonexistent plot, designed to incorporate an abundance of superstars, lent credence to Rossini’s decision to withdraw the opera once it had served its purpose — providing entertainment for the coronation of Charles X of France. Experiencing Il viaggio in the theatre, however, reveals its unconventional drama about a collection of upper-crust Europeans thwarted in their plans to attend the coronation to be an essential strength. The very triviality points up human foibles and, in the context of Rossini’s elaborate music, supplies a source of hilarity. »
30 Jun 2005
The San Francisco Opera’s 2004-05 season is winding down in nicely palindromic fashion. The company’s final offering, which opened (or reopened) Friday night at the War Memorial Opera House, is a revival of the handsome new production of Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” that began the season back in September, and its virtues remain essentially intact. »
28 Jun 2005
This performance must have been heart-warming for all diehards of traditionalism — no Spanish Civil War, no Palestinian-Israeli conflict, just plain religious warfare in France on the night of the 23rd of August 1572, the infamous ‘nuit de Saint-Bartholomée’ (St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre). One is now almost so used to the excesses of ‘das Regie-Theater’ that one almost is shocked to see such a realistic looking production where dozens of people move on the stage in magnificent authentic costumes all the time (300 of them during the whole opera). As a consequence director Lacombe had his singers act as realistically as possible with real sword fights instead of stylised ones, no squirming on the floor etc. Apart from the visual splendour, everything was concentrated on the music and the singing. »
27 Jun 2005
NO FLOTILLA of swans, no dancing green men, no grand descent of the Sun King; in fact no big production numbers at all. Yet this concert performance of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen will be a hard act for the forthcoming Proms appearance to follow. »
27 Jun 2005
Vom Bundeskanzler bis zu Deutsch lands Feuilletonistinnen waren alle da. Denn mit Andrea Breth und Ni kolaus Harnoncourt hatten zwei Liebkinder des Kultur-Establishments erstmals gemeinsam eine Musiktheaterproduktion zu erarbeiten. Derartige Kunst-Bande zu knüpfen, ist die nobelste Aufgabe von Festspielen. Womit die “Styriarte” für ihre heurige Eröffnung ein adäquates Zeichen gesetzt hat. Auf der Strecke blieb dabei Bizets “Carmen”; oder zumindest das, was man bisher dafür gehalten hat. »
26 Jun 2005
Das schönste Teil steht als Reklame vor der Tür: einer von Jimmy Durhams Büffeln, gehäutet und skelettiert. Ansonsten hat der indianische Künstler und Bühnenbildner eine Mischung aus Showbühne mit Aussichtspodest und Bahnhofshalle für Hans Zenders neue Chief Joseph-Oper gebaut: Vorn links auf dem teilweise überdeckten Orchestergraben ein Riesenmüllcontainer, aus dem später der kleine Joseph oder auch Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht, was soviel heißt wie “Der Donner, der über die Berge rollt”, kriecht und den Vater befragt, wie das denn sei mit den Weißen, ob sie alle Lügner sind, oder ob man einigen von ihnen wenigstens trauen kann, bevor er selbst das Kommando übernimmt, übernehmen muss. In rotbraunem Siedleranzug, nicht in umbrafarbener Federkluft, geht er dann sinnend durch die Szene. »
22 Jun 2005
This production of Puccini’s classic, originally directed by John Copley, began life in 1974 and is now the oldest in the Royal Opera’s repertory. It’s still serviceable in its old-fashioned way, at least when lit with sufficient discretion to hide its increasing shabbiness. »
![Sara Jakubiak as Marie [Photo by Tristram Kenton courtesy of English National Opera]](http://www.operatoday.com/Wozzeck--Sara_Jakubiak.gif)