Category: Performances

Last week in the Danish capital city, still chilly after freezing weather and heavy snow, the spirits were raised by two contrasting but equally fulfilling events in the shape of the Danish Royal Opera’s revival of Francisco Negrin’s production of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” featuring the return of star European countertenor Andreas Scholl in the title role, and the debut appearance in the city of his American counterpart, David Daniels, in a concert performance of Bach and Vivaldi. Both singers were in fact enjoying indulging their talents in their less well known fachs: Scholl is rarely seen on the opera stage and admits to feeling less than completely at home there. Daniels, on the other hand, fresh from yet another Handelian triumph at the Metropolitan Opera (Bertarido in the sumptuous new production of “Rodelinda”) is not known as a Bach specialist, but was essaying his second concert performance in Europe of the great cantata BWV82, “Ich Habe Genug”, reviewed elsewhere.

IT IS easy to sniff at English National Opera’s decision to stage Leonard Bernstein’s first, unashamedly Broadway musical. Unlike some of his later work it has no “operatic” pretensions. But the Broadway musical was a continuation of opera by other means, and Bernstein maintained to the end of his life that, if opera had a future (which he doubted), it would be intimately tied up with the Broadway idiom that he helped to create.

Il existe des appartements où vous ne pouvez brancher à la fois la machine à laver, le téléviseur et le sèche-cheveux sans faire tout disjoncter. C’est un peu l’impression que l’on avait jeudi soir à Notre-Dame, pour la Passion selon saint Matthieu, dirigée par John Nelson. A peine le chef avait-il salué le public, que les projecteurs s’éteignirent soudain. Il fallut une demi-heure pour les rallumer un par un, et lorsqu’à 20 h 33, le dernier spot fut enfin rétabli, le courant sauta derechef ! Ce n’est qu’à 20 h 40 que le grandiose double choeur introductif put faire résonner les colonnes de Notre-Dame. On n’a pu qu’admirer le sang-froid des artistes, restés en scène tout du long, soumis à une pression que certains exorcisaient en plaisantant, d’autres en maintenant leur instrument au chaud ou en se concentrant.

Nearly a century ago, the great pianist and intriguing composer Ferruccio Busoni declared that the duty of the performer is to liberate music “from the deadness of the printed page and bring it to life again.”

If you’re going to attend one Toronto Symphony Orchestra concert this year, make it this one. There’s nothing like leaving Roy Thomson Hall with your feet six inches off the ground — especially when it’s snowing.

The new production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tale Of Tsar Saltan, which premiered at the Mariinsky Theater on Tuesday, is like a happy child’s dream: placid, multi-colored, entertaining – and it has a happy ending.

The Mascagni and Leoncavallo double bill was the very first staging ever undertaken by Welsh National Opera in 1946 and sentiment decreed that it should be played in the company’s inaugural season at its new home. Elijah Moshinsky’s production was created for WNO’s jubilee and has done sterling duty. It has proved a glorious vehicle for both chorus and orchestra. And the moment when the battered truck that brings Pagliaccio’s touring troupe on to the stage is emblematic.

Anna Christy plays Cunegonde in NYC Opera’s ‘Candide.’
Monty Python fans waiting for “Spamalot” tickets can warm up happily at “Candide,” City Opera’s spring season opener at Lincoln Center.

An der Wiener Staatsoper ist Wagners “Ring des Nibelungen” derzeit in der Inszenierung von Adolf Dresen zu sehen – das nächste Mal am 12., 17., 24. April und am 1. Mai unter der musikalischen Leitung der Australierin Simone Young. Wer der altbacken und teilweise lächerlich wirkenden Produktion überdrüssig ist, muss bis 2007 warten: Am 2. Dezember hat Sven-Eric Bechtolfs Neuproduktion der “Walküre” in Wien Premiere, am Pult steht Franz Welser-Möst. Die beiden sind ein eingespieltes Team. Bis 2009 wird der Regisseur, der am Burgtheater den “Reigen”, “Cyrano de Bergerac” und “Leonce und Lena” inszeniert hat, auch die drei anderen Teile der Tetralogie in Szene setzen. Zu seinem Konzept wollte er noch nicht viel verraten. Er sehe Wotan aber nicht “mit Aktenkoffer” über die Bühne wandern und kann sich auch Walhall “nicht als Großraumbüro” vorstellen. Bechtolf spielte damit auf die heftig gescholtene Bayreuther Ring-Inszenierung von Jürgen Flimm an, die im August 2004 das letzte Mal über die Bühne gegangen war.

Any production of Wagner’s Ring cycle needs some kind of coherence, so it is logical for a staging of Die Walküre to continue where the previous instalment, Das Rheingold, left off. In the case of the Royal Opera’s new production, though, that turns out to be not such a good thing at all.