There is some slim irony to an opera company pursuing the complicated business of staging Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the current economy — it entails the very sort of dubious compromises that get Wotan and crew into such hot water (if one assumes the cataclysmic fire at the end of Gˆtterd‰mmerung heated the Rhine).
Month: March 2009
Bel canto, an escape into beauty
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article5859018.ece
Tristan und Isolde in Chicago
By the close of the first act of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in its current production at Lyric Opera of Chicago the audience has been given a strong impression of the multi-faceted characters bound up in the musical drama unfolding on stage.
Fidelio — London Lyric Opera, Cadogan Hall
After a problematic debut last Autumn with Der fliegende Holl‰nder at the Barbican, London’s newest opera-in-concert outfit returned this month with Fidelio at the smaller Cadogan Hall.
Siegfried Wagner: Rainulf und Adelasia
A medieval tale of ill-starred love, in three very long acts, with questions of loyalty to a king and one title character urging another to drink from a cup of poison…
Korngold Thrills in Venice
It is not often that the team of stage director, set and costume designer get the biggest, most boisterously rowdy roar of approval at opera’s end.
Sir Harrison Birtwistle on the joy of music
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5ccaa0d0-09dd-11de-add8-0000779fd2ac.html
Dr Atomic lands on London with a bang
To say that Dr Atomic landed in London with a bang is shocking, but the subject it deals with is meant to be disturbing. Unlike the scientists at Los Alamos, we can’t live in denial of the wider implications. This isn’t history. It’s a universal dilemma, utterly relevant today.
Charles Workman — the American dying to sing “Acis” for the Royal Opera
American? Well, yes, that’s what it says on one of his passports, but the other is British and he and his family reside in the UK and have done since 1995.