On February 7, 1786, Emperor Joseph II of Austria had brand new one-act operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri performed in the Schˆnbrunn Palace’s Orangery.
Month: April 2016
Powerful chemistry in La Cenerentola in Cologne
Those poor opera lovers in Cologne have a never ending problem with the city’s opera house. Together with the rest of city, the construction of the new opera house is mired in political incompetence.
Tannh‰user: Royal Opera House, London
London remains starved of Wagner. This season, its major companies offer but two works, Tannh‰user from the Royal Opera and Tristan from ENO.
The Golden Cockerel in Düsseldorf
Dmitry Bertman’s hilarious staging of Rimsky-Korsakov’s political sex-comedy The Golden Cockerel in Düsseldorf.
San Diego Opera Presents a Tragic Madama Butterfly
On April 16, 2016, San Diego Opera presented Giacomo Puccini’s sixth opera, Madama Butterfly, in an intriguing production by Garnett Bruce. Roberto Oswald’s scenery included the usual Japanese styled house with many sliding doors and walls. On either side, however, were blooming cherry trees with rough trunks and gnarled branches that looked as though they had been growing on the property for a hundred years.
Simon Rattle conducts Tristan und Isolde
New Co-Production Tristan und Isolde with Metropolitan: Simon
Rattle and Westbroek electrify Treliński’s Opera-Noir.
San Jose’s Smooth Streetcar Ride
In an operatic world crowded with sure-fire bread and butter repertoire, Opera San Jose has boldly chosen to lavish a new production on a dark horse, Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
RomÈo et Juliette: Dutch National Opera and Ballet seal merger with leaden Berlioz
Choral symphony, oratorio, symphonic poem — Berlioz’s RomÈo et Juliette does not fit into any mould. It has the potential to work as an opera-ballet, but incoherent storytelling and uninspired conducting undermined this production.
Donizetti : Lucia di Lammermoor, Royal Opera House
When Kasper Holten took the precaution of pre-warning ticket-holders that the Royal Opera House’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor featured scene portraying ‘sexual acts’ and ‘violence’, one assumed that he was aiming to avert a re-run of the jeering and hectoring that accompanied last season’s Guillaume Tell. He even went so far as to offer concerned patrons a refund.
A Conversation with Sir Nicholas Jackson
With its merry-go-round exchange of deluded and bewitched lovers, an orphan-turned-princess, a usurped prince, a jewel and a flower with magical properties, a march to the scaffold and a meddling ‘mistress-of-ceremonies’ who encourages the young lovers to disguise and deceive, William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring has all the ingredients of an opera buffa.