This production of Puccini’s classic, originally directed by John Copley, began life in 1974 and is now the oldest in the Royal Opera’s repertory. It’s still serviceable in its old-fashioned way, at least when lit with sufficient discretion to hide its increasing shabbiness.
Category: Performances
Britten’s Gloriana in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS, June 19 – In more than 50 years on the British throne Queen Elizabeth II has shown scant interest in opera. So it is paradoxical that one of the major events of her coronation ceremonies was the 1953 premiere by the Royal Opera at Covent Garden of Benjamin Britten’s “Gloriana,” an elaborate three-act work about the first Queen Elizabeth, with a libretto by William Plomer based on Lytton Strachey’s book “Elizabeth and Essex.”
Schade and Hvorostovsky in Vienna
Die Zugabe war klug gewählt: “Wien, Wien nur du allein” sang der deutsch-kanadische Tenor Michael Schade zum Abschluss seines Liederabends im Konzerthaus. Bei so viel Zuneigung war ihm frenetischer Beifall sicher – und mancher Lacher für die drollige Aussprache. Den Applaus hatte er sich verdient. “Of Ladies and Love” war das Motto des Konzerts mit Liedern von Schubert, Beethoven, Liszt, Faure, Ravel und Strauss. Besonders mit leidenschaftlichen, ungestümen Liedern überzeugte er, etwa mit Liszts “Tre sonetti de Petrarca” oder Beethovens “Adelaide”. Hier kam Schades volle, schön timbrierte Stimme hervorragend zur Geltung, und auch im Ausdruck schienen ihm dramatische Liebeserfahrungen näher zu liegen als innig-verzärtelnde.
Boris Goudenow and the Boston Early Music Festival
BOSTON, June 17 – For fans and performers of early music, this city is paradise for a week every other June, when the Boston Early Music Festival sets up its combination concert marathon and trade show. The festival offers performances every night between 5 and midnight. The centerpiece is always a lavishly produced Baroque opera – this year’s is Johann Mattheson’s long-lost “Boris Goudenow” – but concerts by imported ensembles and soloists, and by the festival’s period instrument orchestra, are also a strong draw.
Rossini’s La gazzeta at the Liceu
El dramaturgo y premio Nobel de Literatura italiano Dario Fo confesó ayer que ha «saqueado» a Rossini y la tradición de la ‘comedia dell’arte’ para hacer la escenografía de la ópera ‘La gazzeta’ del compositor italiano, que el Liceo barcelonés estrenará el próximo día 20. ‘La gazzeta’ narra la historia de don Pomponio, que quiere casar a su hija con el mejor partido. Para ello, inserta un anuncio en el diario en el que hace un elogio ditirámbico. Aunque la obra estaba llamada a tener éxito, la escasa promoción propició, según Fo, que no recibiera el interés del público cuando se estrenó en Nápoles en 1816.
Il Barbiere di “Siviglia” in Antwerp
Very attentive readers will have noticed I put “Siviglia” in quotation marks as it refers in this production to the name of an Italian hairdresser’s salon and not to the Spanish city. Director Joosten who always keeps an attentive eye on surtitles and has them changed when the sung lines are contrary to the happenings on the scene nevertheless let a reference to the Spanish Prado slip in.
The Midnight Court at Queen of Puddings Music Theatre
Irish fairies can be malign spirits, but they’ve done nothing but good for Queen of Puddings Music Theatre. This small Toronto company launched its only production of the season at Harbourfront Centre on Saturday, and a scant hour later had scored its biggest artistic success ever.
Falstaff at LA Opera
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – “Falstaff” might have been Verdi’s last opera; it might have been Verdi’s greatest opera; it is, without doubt, Verdi’s only and most hilariously comic opera.
Felicity Lott at Wigmore Hall
“What’s a dame like me doing in a dump like this?” It takes a DBE to get away with a line like that in a venue as august as the Wigmore Hall – and this was how Felicity Lott wrapped up a recital marking 30 years of performing here with pianist Graham Johnson. The programme, Fallen Women and Virtuous Wives, is one the pair are currently touring. While its humour found its niche in the Wigmore Hall, how it will play in Luxembourg next week is anyone’s guess.
Der Freischütz at Carnegie Hall
If Carl Maria von Weber never quite made it into the grand procession of Romantic giants, he left behind an opera of indestructible charm. “Der Freischütz,” which Eve Queler’s Opera Orchestra of New York undertook on Monday night at Carnegie Hall, is first of all a darling of historians – a musicological ground zero for the German musical theater.