Stefan Herheim’s Die Meistersinger von N¸rnberg in Salzburg will transfer to the Met. Will audiences collapse in hysteria?
Author: Anne Ozorio
Prom 57: Wagner — Parsifal
Prom 57’s Parsifal (Mark Elder, the HallÈ) brought us John Tomlinson, perhaps the greatest Wagnerian bass of our time.
Prom 45: Tiippett’s The Midsummer Marriage
Sir Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage has a lot of things against it, it requires a large cast including dancers and a large chorus and orchestra, the plot with its elements of Jungian analysis is confusing, the composer’s libretto with its colloquial elements now sounds rather dated and frankly a bit embarrassing.
Coleridge Taylor: The Song of Hiawatha, Three Choirs Festival
The Song of Hiawatha, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at Gloucester Cathedral, highlight of this year’s Three Choirs Festival.
Stockhausen at the BBC Proms
The Royal Albert Hall was made for Karl-Heinz Stockhausen. BBC Prom 11 2013 featured Gesang der J¸nglinge and Welt-Parliament from Mittwoch from Licht.
La Rondine, Royal Opera House
La Rondine isn’t Puccini’s finest moment. As drama it’s a retread of La BohËme. The music resembles out-takes from Madama Butterfly. What holds it together is Magda.
Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie, Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne revitalizes Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie. Baroque tastes were extravagant. Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil, and his successor Louis XV, epitomized the aesthetic: audacity, not gentility, vigour, not timidity.
Bizet : Pearl Fishers, Opera Holland Park London
Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers confirms the composer’s deftness in penning a good tune and spinning a faux-Oriental orchestral fabric. But, opera is more than simply a catchy melody or two, and if it wasn’t for the tenor-baritone friendship duet ‘Au Fond du Temple Saint’, the opera’s one-dimensional characters and dramatic stiltedness would probably see it consigned to the drawer marked ‘lesser-known, justly neglected’.
Thomas Hampson Simon Boccanegra, Royal Opera House London
Thomas Hampson’s first Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House makes this revival of Verdi’s great opera worthwhile. It’s a role which suits a singer of Hampson’s intelligence.
Ermonela Jaho — Singing and Character
Ermonela Jaho caused a sensation at Covent Garden in London five years ago, when she took over Violetta at short notice from Anna Netrebko.