Handel’s Tamerlano, in the production by Graham Vick, is well
known, but its run at the Royal Opera House is unusual because many of the cast
are creating the roles for the first time. It isn’t a live reprise of the DVD,
but more challenging.
Category: Performances
Tamerlano: Handel at the Royal Opera House, London
Karlsruhe: Rare Verdi, Well Done
The Baden State Theatre’s new mounting of I Masnadieri may not completely be the production of one’s dreams.
Matthias Goerne at Wigmore Hall, London
In this, the first of two recitals with pianist Helmut Deutsch, baritone Matthias Goerne continued his very personal journey through the landscape of Schubert’s lieder, a passage which is currently being preserved on an outstanding series of discs by Harmonia Mundi.
Ariadne auf Naxos, New York
As the first familiar themes of Ariadne came from the pit, I felt
myself sinking — sinking from a tense, dreary, daily world into a sort of
ecstatic fantasy — a place where all was happy, funny, romantic, inane,
fateful and surprising all at once — Sarah Connolly superb, Kathleen Kim
charming, Nina Stemme full-throated,
Armide by Opera Lafayette
Gluck’s Armide, as semi-staged (costumed dancers but no
scenery) at the Rose Theater by the Washington-based Opera Lafayette, was
exactly what Gluck designed the piece to be: a supremely elegant entertainment.
Donizetti revealed: Lucia di Lammermoor, ENO, London
Donizetti’s original concept of Lucia di Lammermoor is revealed in its true glory in this ground breaking production by the English National Opera, first heard in 2008. The opera is loved in its familiar form, but the new critical edition reveals the depth of Donizetti’s musical creation.
Heidelberg’s Stumbling Spartaco at Schwetzingen Castle
For those who might be seeking a representational tale of the legendary Roman slave Spartacus, well, Gladiator this ain’t.
CosÏ fan tutte, Covent Garden
First seen in 1995, and here receiving its seventh revival, Jonathan Miller’s CosÏ fan tutte has lost none of its power to unsettle and discomfort.
Shohat’s The Child Dreams — A mature work
Gil Shohat, now 35 and Israeli’s top classical composer, was 15 when
in the ‘80s he saw Hanoch Levin’s The Child Dream on stage in his native Tel Aviv. Shohat, of course, knew Levin’s work well, for throughout early decades in the history of Israel he — its outstanding dramatist — had served somewhat as the conscience of a nation tormented defining itself within its pain-wrought beginnings.