I extravagantly scheduled hearing the Berliner, Concertgebouw Orchestra, and
Wiener Philharmoniker, to hear these three top orchestra perform their series
programmes opening the New Year.
Year: 2017
Verdi’s Requiem with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Jeanne d’Arc au b˚cher in Lyon
There is no bigger or more prestigious name in avant-garde French theater than Romeo Castellucci (b. 1960), the Italian metteur en scËne of this revival of Arthur Honegger’s mystËre lyrique, Joan of Arc at the Stake (1938) at the OpÈra Nouvel in Lyon.
A New Look at Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio
On January 28, 2017, Los Angeles Opera premiered James Robinson’s nineteen twenties production of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, which places the story on the Orient Express. Since Abduction is a work with spoken dialogue like The Magic Flute, the cast sang their music in German and spoke their lines in English.
Giasone in Geneva
Fecund Jason, father of his wife Isifile’s twins and as well father of his seductress Medea’s twins, does indeed have a problem — he prefers to sleep with and wed Medea. In this resurrection of the most famous opera of the seventeenth century he evidently also sleeps with Hercules.
Falstaff in Genoa
A Falstaff that raised-the-bar ever higher, this was a posthumous resurrection of Luca Ronconi’s masterful staging of Verdi’s last opera, the third from last of the 83 operas Ronconi staged during his lifetime (1933-2015). And his third staging of Falstaff following Salzburg in 1993 and Florence in 2006.
Traviata in Seattle
One of Aidan Lang’s first initiatives as artistic director of Seattle
Opera was to encourage his board to formulate a “mission statement”
for the fifty-year old company. The document produced was clear, simple, and
anodyne. Seattle Opera would aim above all to create work appealing both to the
emotions and reason of the audience.
Wagner at the Deutsche Oper Berlin Part II: Kasper Holten’s angelic Lohengrin
Contrary to Stolzi’s multidimensional Parsifal,
Holten’s simple setting of Lohengrin felt timeless with its
focus on the drama between characters. Premiering in 2012, nothing too flashy
and with a clever twist,
Wagner at the Deutsche Oper Berlin Part I: Stölzl’s Psychedelic Parsifal
Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB) consistently serves up superlatively sung Wagner
productions. This Fall, its productions of Philipp Stölzl’s Parsifal and
Kasper Holten’s Lohengrin offered intoxicating musical affairs. Annette Dasch, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Peter Seiffert reached for the stars. Even when it
comes down to last minute replacements, the casting is topnotch.
Donna abbandonata: Temple Song Series
Donna abbandonata would have been a good title for the first concert of Temple Music’s 2017 Song Series. Indeed, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice seems to be making a habit of playing abandoned women.
When Performance Gets Political: A Brooklyn Concert Benefiting the ACLU
What’s an artist’s place in politics? That’s the question
many were asking after actress Meryl Streep made a pointed speech criticizing
President Trump at the Golden Globes. Trump responded directly to Streep, using
his preferred communication medium of Twitter to call Streep
“overrated.”