I had last seen Arabella as part of the Munich Opera Festival’s Richard Strauss Week in 2008. It is not, I am afraid, my favourite Strauss opera; in fact, it is probably my least favourite. However, I am always willing to be convinced.
Author: Gary Hoffman
LÈo Delibes: LakmÈ
Camille Saint-SaÎns once remarked, snidely, that: ‘French criticism has not reproached Delibes with not being a melodist; he has made some operettas.’
Falstaff, Royal Opera
Director Robert Carsen’s 2012 production of Verdi’s Falstaff, here revived by Christophe Gayral, might be subtitled ‘full of stuff’ or ‘stuffed full’: for it’s a veritable orgy of feasting from first to last – from Falstaff’s breakfast binge-in-bed to the final sumptuous wedding banquet.
Die schweigsame Frau, Munich
If Strauss’s operas of the 1920s receive far too little performing attention, especially in the Anglosphere, those of the 1930s seem to fare worse still.
O/MODƏRNT: Monteverdi in Historical Counterpoint
O/MODƏRNT is Swedish for ‘un/modern’. It is also the name of the festival — curated by artistic director Hugo Ticciati and held
annually since 2011 at the Ulriksdal’s Palace Theatre, Confidencen — which aims to look back and celebrate the past ‘by
exploring the relationships between the work of old composers and the artistic and intellectual creations of modern culture’.
Guillaume Tell, Covent Garden
It is twenty-three years since Rossini’s opera of cultural oppression, inspiring heroism and tender pathos was last seen on the Covent Garden stage, but this eagerly awaited new production of Guillaume Tell by Italian director Damiano Micheletto will be remembered more for the audience outrage and vociferous mid-performance booing that it provoked — the most persistent and strident that I have heard in this house — than for its dramatic, visual or musical impact.
Aida, Opera Holland Park
With its outrageous staging demands, you sometimes wonder why opera companies want to produce Verdi’s Aida. But the piece is about far more than pharaohs, pyramids and camels.
Press Release: Welsh National Opera explores Madness for autumn season
Madness descends upon Welsh National Opera for its autumn 2015 season, with three new productions that will explore human turmoil through some of the finest musical expressions of madness and the human condition.
The ‘Other’ Così
Twin sisters – one pensive, the other gregarious – are soon to wed their beau, whose contrasting characters – one earnestly introverted,
the other a boisterous hedonist – perfectly match their respective betrotheds’.