One of Janáček’s most famous operas, Jenůfa is a clear masterpiece. Janáček, in his remarkable adaptation of Gabriela Preissová’s play Její pastorkyña (Her Stepdaughter), offers a searing tale of infanticide…
Category: Staged Operas
An Enchanting, Must-See Magic Flute from ENO
Entertainment does not come much more laugh-out-loud than English National Opera’s current run of The Magic Flute, now in its third revival, and notwithstanding recent machinations over the company’s future.…
The Dutchman returns to Covent Garden
Tim Albery’s production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer – which presents, as the composer intended, the opera in one unbroken, 140-minute span and concludes with the ‘Dresden’ ending of emphatic…
Musically Ravishing Roméo et Juliette in Idaho
Opera Idaho has gifted their public with a thrillingly sung and played performance of Charles Gounod’s tuneful and compelling take on Shakespeare’s evergreen classic tale of star-crossed love: Romeo and…
La traviata in Marseille
Three fine singers saved Marseille Opéra’s recent 5 performance run of La traviata. Marred by a bizarre pit and weird staging conceits, Verdi’s middle period masterwork emerged, in spite of…
Adriana Lecouvreur in Paris
The one by Francesco Cilea. There are several others by forgotten composers. This one sits uneasily in the verismo category given its hyper contrived plot and its historical setting. Leading…
Giulio Cesare in Paris
This Laurent Pelly production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare is wily indeed, enriching Handel’s estimation of antiquity’s most famous female with supreme wit. Were it pure Baroque opera seria these current…
Beatrice di Tenda in Paris
Bellini’s second to last opera, Beatrice di Tenda, was not a success at its 1833 Venice premiere, though subsequent performances are said to have overcome the opera’s macabre horrors through…
Eugene Onegin returns to the New National Theatre Tokyo
First unveiled in 2019 (reviewed by David Chandler here: The New Season at the New National Theatre, Tokyo – Opera Today), this revival of Dmitry Bertman’s Eugene Onegin – his…
Tosca returns to the Royal Opera House
For a successful theatre production to work well, Puccini once asserted, there were three fixed laws. He claimed these should be a necessity ‘to interest, to surprise, to move’. This…