On 17 March 2018 Lyric Opera of Chicago will premiere the 2016 opera Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears (with a libretto by Greg Pierce, based on the novel by Thomas Mallon. Mallon’s 2007 novel offered fresh perspectives on the paranoiac investigations of McCarthy-era Washington, DC, through the lens of a gay relationship.
Month: March 2018
The ROH’s first production of From the House of the Dead
Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production for the ROH of From the House of the Dead is ‘new’ in several regards. It’s (astonishingly) the first time that Jan·?ek’s last opera has been staged at Covent Garden; it’s Warlikowski’s debut at Covent Garden; and the production uses a new 2017 critical edition prepared by John Tyrrell.
CosÏ fan tutte at Lyric Opera of Chicago
With artifice, disguise, and questions on fidelity as the basis of Mozart’s CosÏ fan tutte, the composer’s mature opera has returned to the stage at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
WNO’s Wheel of Destiny rolls into Birmingham
Welsh National Opera’s wheel of destiny has rolled into Birmingham this week, with Verdi’s sprawling tragedy, La forza del destino, opening the company’s ‘Rabble Rousing’ triptych at the Hippodrome.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal College of Music
The gossamer web of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is sufficiently insubstantial and ambiguous to embrace multiple interpretative readings: the play can be a charming comic caper, a jangling journey through human pettiness and cruelty, a moonlit fairy fantasy or a shadowy erotic nightmare, and much more besides.
Les FunÈrailles Royales de Louis XIV recreated at Versailles
Les FunÈrailles Royales de Louis XIV, with Ensemble Pygmalion, conducted by RaphaÎl Pichon now on DVD/Blu -ray from Harmonia Mundi. This captures the historic performance at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles in November 2015, on the 300th anniversary of the King’s death.
Robert Carsen’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream returns to ENO
Having given us Christopher Alden’s strangely dystopic production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2011, English National Opera (ENO) has opted for Robert Carsen’s bed-inspired vision for the latest revival of the opera at the London Coliseum.
Turandot in San Diego—Prima la voce
The big musical set pieces in Turandot require voice, voice, and more voice, and San Diego Opera has gifted us with a world-class cast of singing actors.
Opera in Amsterdam in 2018-2019
The operatic tradition is not as old in the Netherlands as in other European countries, yet opera is a vital part of the Dutch classical landscape. Both Dutch National Opera & Ballet and the Concertgebouw are in Amsterdam, so the capital gets the lion’s share of the opera on offer.