To say that Dr Atomic landed in London with a bang is shocking, but the subject it deals with is meant to be disturbing. Unlike the scientists at Los Alamos, we can’t live in denial of the wider implications. This isn’t history. It’s a universal dilemma, utterly relevant today.
Category: Reviews
La bohËme — English National Opera
Jonathan Miller’s new production of Puccini’s wintry opera was denied its planned opening night on Monday 2nd February by a bout of unusually heavy snow which brought most of London’s transport services to a halt and turned it into a virtual ghost town (thus, up the road at Covent Garden, the cancellation of a performance of Korngold’s ‘Die tote Stadt’ was equally ironic).
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth)
Recorded on 9 November 1959 at Symphony Hall (now Symphony Center), this recent issue of a classic performed of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde translates the then state-of-the-art RCA “Living Stereo” sound for the LP vinyl medium to the enhanced sound currently available in SACD format.
Jan·?ek’s ä·rka at Dicapo Opera
There is a visceral pleasure in hearing so many healthy sets of young lungs tearing into this music, and they do sing, they do not bellow.
A restrained Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House, London
This Der fliegende Holl‰nder was eagerly awaited as it hasn’t been heard at the Royal Opera House, London, since 2000. With Bryn Terfel’s return to Covent Garden as the Dutchman guaranteed a full house.
Lucrezia Borgia at Munich
Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, his 30th opera, is based on Victor Hugo’s play of the same name, and had its premiere at La Scala in 1833.
Leh·r’s Die Lustige Witwe from Semperoper Dresden
JÈrÙme Savary, director of this December 2007 Semperoper Dresden production of Leh·r’s Die Lustige Witwe, expresses a view in the booklet essay that many others will probably share: “What I like most of all about The Merry Widow is its music, which is literally bursting with colours, gyrating movements and sensuality…”
Adriana Lecouvreur at the MET
There come nights in the opera season where gesamtkunstwerke won’t do — enough of epic masterpieces and supreme lyric outpourings of the human spirit!
Frankfurt: Thinking Inside the Box
My heart didn’t exactly leap in joyful anticipation as I entered the Frankfurt Opera and saw the Arabella pre-set on stage: a big, shallow, white box.