It is not often that a Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land comes along with resources like those of the OpÈra de Lyon, one of Europe’s finest. So carpe diem!
Year: 2014
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera
Kasper Holten’s new production of Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera
House risks laying the house’s Director of Opera open to charges of
antiquated mores and misogyny: for he seems to suggest that the women are just
as bad, if not worse, than their seducer — and that a soulful man who seeks
genuine love is likely to find his ‘ideal beloved’ forever out of reach.
Pagliacci Opens San Diego Opera’s 2014 Season
On January 28, San Diego Opera presented Pagliacci as the opening production of the 2014 season. Often staged along with another opera, such as Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, this Pagliacci faced the opera world alone.
Coeur de Chien aka A Dog’s Life in Lyon
If satire is your thing you will not want to miss this opera about human testicles grafted onto a dog.
Rusalka in Monaco
Every-once-in-a-while a Rusalka comes along, and this week there are even two here on the French Riviera — just now in Monaco and upcoming Saturday on movie screens all along the coast.
Peter Grimes, ENO
For many years, the shadow of Peter Pears hovered at the shoulder of any tenor who dared to offer their own reading of Britten’s equivocal fisherman. But, as the aural memories of Pears’ visionary dreamer soften — in the opera house, at least, if not on recordings — modern singers are increasingly released from the ghostly echoes of the past.
Puccini’s La bohËme at Arizona Opera
On January 25, 2014, Arizona Opera presented Candace Evans production of Puccini’s La bohËme with exciting young artists Zach Borichevsky and Corinne Winters as a romantic Rodolfo and his charming but not-so-innocent MimÏ.
Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: L’Issipile
Francesco Bartolomeo Conti (1681-1732) isn’t a name that trips off opera-goers’ tongues; similarly neglected is Conti’s last opera L’Issipile, despite the fact that composer (who was also a theorbo player at the Viennese Imperial Court) was the first of several opera composers to set Metastasio’s libretto.
Christoph PrÈgardien, Wigmore Hall
Christoph PrÈgardien has always been a master of creative, exciting ways with Lieder.
Parsifal, Chicago
The dimly lit stage becomes gradually suffused with spare light during the prelude to Richard Wagner’s Parsifal in its new production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.