“Mozart’s first mature masterpiece,” Sophie Becker calls Idomeneo in the booklet essay of this DVD set of a June 2008 Bayerische Staatsoper staging.
Category: Reviews
Haydn’s Bicentenary : 20 Capitals Salute “The Creation” With Standing Ovations
The Austrian Ministry of Culture and the Committee for the Celebrations of
Haydn’s Bicentenary had a brilliant idea: on May 31st , the day of the
composer’s death, 20 symphony orchestras and/or opera houses performed
one of his greatest and best known oratorios Die Schˆpfung (The
Creation) .
La Scala at the Movies: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
From the La Scala series of filmed productions come two excellent DVDs, one an incisive and contemporary staging by Patrice Chereau of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and the other a rip-roaring, old-fashioned (in the best sense) performance of Donizetti’s flawed but entertaining Maria Stuarda.
Berlin: City of Three Operas
Where else in the world does one have three opera houses, all playing almost nightly for 10 months of the year? It’s one of the things that makes Berlin paradise for opera buffs.
Tosca in San Francisco
Like Carmen, Tosca is a constant presence in our operatic lives, frequently revisited like it or not.
Otto Nicolai: Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor
Otto Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor belongs to that somewhat purgatorial group of operas best remembered only for their overtures.
CosÏ fan tutte, English National Opera
ENO’s latest new production of CosÏ — their third this decade — made the arts headlines from the start of its rehearsal period when director Abbas Kiarostami found himself unable to secure a UK visa and was forced to withdraw his direct involvement, leaving colleague Elaine Tyler-Hall to deputise.
A shockingly different Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London
The buzz was right — this new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London is shockingly different. Christof Loy’s production is what minimalism should be.
Schubert : Winterreise — Middle Temple Hall, London
Julius Drake’s Temple song series is almost a cult secret -not known to the mass market but highly regarded among those who know, much like the Lieder genre itself.
Haydn’s “Il Ritorno Di Tobia” , Oratorio Or Opera Seria?
Joseph Haydn’s place in the history of the oratorio has been secured by his masterpieces The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). His first appearance, however, on the Mount Parnassus of oratorio was a good quarter of a century beforehand with Il ritorno di Tobia.