Beste Stimmung im Nationaltheater. Und das nicht nur, weil auf der Bühne jahreszeitlich korrekt der Fasching tobte. Nein, nicht die bunten Luftschlangen und närrischen Hütchen peppten den Abend auf, sondern die Sänger. Sie heizten mit ihrem Totaleinsatz die x-te Repertoirevorstellung von Richard Strauss’ “Arabella” so an, dass das Abo-Publikum seine helle Freude hatte. Münchner Opernalltag, der im großen Jubel endete.
Category: Reviews
MAHLER: Songs
While a number of fine recent recordings of Mahler’s Lieder with orchestral accompaniment have been released in recent years, his songs are also of interest in the versions the composer made for voice and piano. In presenting the songs with piano accompaniment, Stephan Genz and Roger Vignoles bring out details that can become apparent only in this setting. Genz is known for his fine recordings of Lieder, include the award-winning CD of Beethoven’s Songs, as well as various recordings of Hugo Wolf’s Lieder (all on Hyperion). In this recording of Mahler’s music, he performs with Vignoles three complete sets of Lieder, that is, the cycles Lieder eines farhrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder, as well as the set of Fünf Rückert-Lieder and, further, seven selections of settings from Mahler’s early publication of Lieder und Gesänge.
Handel’s Julius Caesar in Denver
Stephanie Blythe recalls exactly where she was 10 years ago when she fully grasped the power of great acting in opera.
Then an apprentice artist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the mezzo-soprano was standing offstage about 25 feet from famed tenor Placido Domingo as he sang a love duet in “Die Walküre” with soprano Deborah Voigt.
Carmen at Opera Australia
IT would come as a shock to opera-goers if the cast of Carmen were suddenly to break into a chorus of Sisters are Doing it for Themselves.
They might be forgiving, however, once they heard the gospel-tinged tones of American mezzosoprano Andrea Baker, who sings the title role in the Opera Australia production that begins a six-week run under the baton of Russian conductor Alexander Polianichko at the Sydney Opera House tonight.
Venus and Adonis at Seattle
It may not have been the best of times or the worst of times, but it was certainly among the naughtiest of times.
Restoration England, which marked the end of Cromwell’s Puritan regime with the accession of merry monarch Charles II, was an era that makes Paris Hilton seem like a convent girl and “Sex and the City” like a school picnic. In Charles II’s reign, all the prohibitions of Cromwell’s era were repealed; the theaters were reopened, low-cut lace replaced buttoned-up wool, and the royal motto was evidently “thou shalt party hearty.”
Gruberova Performs Norma at the Wiener Staatsoper
Für Edita Gruberova hat die Staatsoper eine konzertante Fassung von Vicenzo Bellinis “Norma” aufs Programm gesetzt.
Endlose Begeisterung, Blumen, Stan ding ovations dankten Edita Gruberova und ihren Mitstreitern für einen packenden Opernabend, der die szenische Aufbereitung keinen Augenblick vermissen ließ. Gerne verzichtete man darauf, die zeitgebundene Schauerromantik der Druiden und ihrer Opferriten anno 50 v. Chr. leibhaftig vor sich zu sehen. Und mehr noch: Keine Regie-Eitelkeit lenkte von der puren Musik ab.
Das Wachsfigurenkabinett at the Münchner Reaktorhalle
Ein buntes Schaubudenprogramm, anmoderiert von zwei Damen in knackigen Kostümen, so präsentieren sich die fünf Kurzopern von Karl Amadeus Hartmanns “Das Wachsfigurenkabinett” in der Münchner Reaktorhalle (Regie: Stefan Spies). Der Inszenierung des ersten Stücks “Der Mann, der vom Tode auferstand” fehlt noch Witz und Schwung. Die Geschichte vom reichen Fabrikanten, der vor seinem Radiogerät einschläft und das Hörspiel von der Arbeiterrevolution für Wirklichkeit hält, leidet an den Schaufel schwingend auftretenden, plump marschierenden Arbeitern.
SMART: Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera
Here’s a serious niche book, a relatively slender volume dealing with a topic at once both arcane and surprisingly central to some of the major controversies in opera production today. I think it has major problems but it has become for me the pebble dropped into the pond that sends ripples to unexpected places, raising interesting questions in the process.
Star Cross’d Lovers In LA
Stale marzipan it may be, but given the appropriate set of protagonists, Charles Gounod’s ponderous 1867 adaptation of Shakespeare’s youthful tragedy still has the power to arouse the senses and engage, if not engulf, the soul. In Rolando Villazón and Anna Netrebko, the Los Angeles Opera has found doomed lovers who are as much star material as “star cross’d”. Whatever else is lacking in the first west coast production of the opera here in 18 years, the Mexican tenor and Russian soprano radiate youthful ardour, stylistic sophistication and sheer theatrical magic.
Democracy: An American Comedy in Washington
How is it possible that a new opera crammed with hot-button subjects—political corruption, ecclesiastical self-satisfaction, feminism, homosexuality—could be a blandly inoffensive entertainment? “Democracy: An American Comedy,” by composer Scott Wheeler and librettist Romulus Linney, commissioned by the Washington National Opera and given its world premiere last weekend, was disappointingly safe. Its provocative themes were smothered by a talky libretto that alternated between earnest exposition and sitcom jokes, set in smoothly tonal, insipid musical language.