Haven’t you always secretly felt that singers who reach for high notes
(and make them) ought to levitate and maintain themselves in mid-air
when they do it?
Category: Performances
El Gato con Botas: Gotham Chamber Opera
Das Rheingold, Metropolitan Opera
It will be no surprise to me, a year or five from now, when someone falls to
her or his death from the guy-wires that configure so much of Robert
Lepage’s new state-of-the-art (ah! But which art?) production of Der
Ring des Nibelung.
Bizet Les PÍcheurs de Perles – Royal Opera House
Bizet’s Les PÍcheurs de Perles is notoriously hard to stage. Because the plot’s so grandiose, the imagination works overtime, dwarfing the music, making it seem puny in comparison. There’s a lot to be said in favour of concert performances because they shift the balance back to Bizet.
Faust by ENO
Perhaps because the rather stolidly Victorian character of both its music
and its morality, Gounod’s Faust has been out of fashion in the
UK in recent decades, and owes a debt to David McVicar and his darkly Gothic
production for the Royal Opera in 2004 (now, at last, available on DVD) for the
restoration of its footing in the standard repertoire.
Orpheo ed Eurydice in Minnesota
Minnesota Opera pulled out all the stops for its 2010-2011 season with its production of Gluck’s Orpheo ed Eurydice.
Tristan und Isolde at Royal Festival Hall
Almost irrespective of the results, it was quite a statement to open the Philharmonia’s London concert season with a performance of Nietzsche’s ‘opus metaphysicum of all true art,’ Tristan und Isolde.
Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Royal Opera
The Royal Opera is hardly renowned for its commitment to baroque opera, and
even the great Handel still gets short shrift in his adopted city’s major
house.
The Makropulos Case at ENO
In their programme note, Christopher Alden and Peter Littlefield explain the
concept which informs this dark, dystopian production of Jan·ček’s
penultimate opera, The Makropulos Case — a production first seen
at ENO in 2004:
An experience In the Penal Colony
Kafka’s In the Penal Colony set as an opera by Philip Glass? Against all expectations, it was a powerful and deeply moving experience.
Un ballo in maschera at the Washington National Opera
Verdi’s 1859 hit Un ballo in maschera is an inspired choice to open an operatic season.