Category: Reviews

Mignon at OONY turned out to be a mixed experience last night. Eve Queler is controversial as a conductor and last night’s opera did not play to her strengths or do anything to conceal her deficiencies. The overture began in a plodding fashion and only came intermittently alive in the conclusion based on the coloratura showpiece for Philene. Throughout, Mignon has some really lovely arias and ensembles but a lot of note spinning as well and not just during the recitatives (the opera was presented in Thomas’s second of three scores, the one in which he suppressed most — not quite all — of the spoken dialog and wrote his own recits). Ms Queler provided almost nothing to enliven, vary or give grace and charm to these conventional passages.

Alcoholism, depression and loneliness were a few of the things that killed Modest Mussorgsky in 1881. He was 42 years old. He left behind the unfinished piano score of Khovanshchina, a vast historical opera that was, among other things, a criticism of Tsar Peter I.

For opera conductors, the Ring cycle remains the professional Everest. So the fact that Andrew Davis has just completed his first Ring at the Lyric Opera in Chicago marks not merely a career peak for one of this country’s most important conductors, it is also a major event for British music – even if it is taking place thousands of miles from home.

Humor is not a quality normally associated with Verdi. He was a dour fellow, dubbed “the bear of Busetto” by his long-suffering wife. His first comic opera, “Un giorno di regno,” was a crashing failure, and “Falstaff,” his final work for the stage, looks more intently into the abyss than most commentators care to admit.

While ruminating about “Madama Butterfly” in these pages the other week, I mentioned that the de facto premiere of the work was not in Italy at all but rather New York, since the David Belasco play originally opened on Herald Square. In the case of “Girl of the Golden West,” both the Belasco theatrical piece and the Puccini opera were launched in Manhattan, the latter under Toscanini in 1910.

Four years after the initial concert performances, English National Opera’s Ring cycle has reached its Wagnerian summit. It is not a triumph of the kind that the young company enjoyed with its first-ever cycle in the 1970s, but at least the staging is complete, with cast and production team intact, as planned. Other, more prestigious companies have achieved less.

Just how good is the Canadian Opera Company’s current Hummingbird production of Il Trovatore? Good enough, that we wouldn’t be all too surprised to find opera buffs donning hard hats and workboots to pitch in down at the corner of Queen and University, just to ensure that this world class company finally has a home that is worthy of it.

Es gab was zu feiern am Ostersonnabend in der Semperoper, und das Publikum feierte gern mit: 274 Jahre nach der Uraufführung stand erstmals wieder „Cleofide“ im Rampenlicht. Die wieder entdeckte Oper des früheren Dresdner Hofkapellmeisters Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783) hatte einst den Ruf Dresdens als Opernmetropole begründet. Klar, dass sich die Staatskapelle besonders ins Zeug legte, um dem barocken Kleinod wieder Leben einzuhauchen.

Donizettis “Liebestrank” ist sonst eine gern gepflegte Repertoire-Bank. Diesmal war jedoch alles anders. Gleißendes Scheinwerferlicht schon beim Betreten der Oper: Der ORF war angetreten, um das Ereignis für die Nachwelt zu bannen. Solches passiert eher selten im Repertoire-Alltag. Selten passiert es aber auch, dass der Besucher eine derart adrett aufpolierte und klingend besetzte Staatsopernaufführung einfach unterm Jahr serviert bekommt. Sogar Außenministerin und Star-Tenor lauschten in der Loge. Der Grund? Anna Netrebko, der schöne, junge russische Sopranliebling, war als Jungbäuerin Adina angesetzt.