“Man is an abyss. It makes one dizzy to look into it.” So utters Georg B¸chner’s Woyzeck, repeating what was also a recurring motif in the playwright’s own letters.
Category: Redbox
The Damnation of Faust, London
Hector Berlioz’s lÈgende dramatique, La Damnation de Faust, exists somewhere between cantata and opera. Berlioz’s flexible attitude to dramatic form made the piece unworkable on the stages of early 19th century Paris and his music is so vivid that you wonder whether the piece needs staging at all.
Kaufmann Wagner
The economics of the recording companies dictate much that is not ideal.
Wagner’s operas were not composed as they were in order to permit the
extraction of bleeding chunks, even on those occasions when strophic song forms
do occur.
Nabucco, Royal Opera House, London
“Gli arredi festivi gi˘ cadano infranti, Il popol di Giuda di lutto s’ammanti!”. Verdi’s Nabucco at the Royal Opera House respected the spirit of the opera.
Gˆtterd‰mmerung at the Staatsoper Berlin
In the final of scene of Gˆtterd‰mmerung in a new production at
the Staatsoper Berlin, Br¸nnhilde appears in a flowing pink gown just as the
music has modulated and penetrates the hall of the Gibichungs, represented by
rows of glowing translucent boxes that preserve the dismembered limbs of their
victims.
Bel Canto Queen Jessica Pratt
When the soprano Jessica Pratt first arrived in Italy, she had yet to learn the language or sing in a staged opera.
Samson and Delilah, San Diego Opera
Samson and Delilah is the only opera by Camille Saint-Saens that is
still regularly performed. He had written two previous operas and would write
several more, along with a long list of instrumental pieces including The
Carnival of the Animals.
Rigoletto at the Met
Michael Mayer’s glitzy neon lights production, set in Rat Pack-era Sin City, proves a fitting backdrop for an opera about a curse
Kate Lindsey at Glyndebourne
It would seem a logical step for the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey to take on
the role of the Composer in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos.