In this age of copyright, the pasticcio – in which pre-existing arias by various composers are assembled to make a ‘new’ work – is a somewhat discredited form, generally regarded…
Category: Staged Operas
Opera North’s Rigoletto
Ostensibly, Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse satirised the licentious court of King Francis I of France, but at the play’s 1832 premiere in Paris the authorities thought the subject…
Handel’s Theodora at the Royal Opera House
Theodora is ‘coming home’ … but not as you know it, was the essential message of the press briefings issued by the Royal Opera House in the run up to…
Les Vêpres Siciliennes in Palermo
Ossia I Vespri Siciliani takes its name from the evening prayer to which the faithful are called by the ringing of bells. Specifically the bells of Verdi’s Sicilian vespers signal…
Kát’a Kabanova in Rome
The Opera di Roma marks the centenary of Janacek’s intimate domestic tragedy Kat’a Kabanova with a new cast for Richard Jones’ prize winning, 2019 Covent Garden production. Reportedly spell binding…
Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House
As an exploration of 18th-century class structures Le nozze di Figaro is a timeless classic which no number of revivals will diminish. With its thumb-nosing at society’s upper echelons, it’s no…
Florencia en el Amazonas at Lyric Opera of Chicago
For its final production during Fall 2021, Lyric Opera of Chicago staged Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas with Ana María Martínez in the title role of the diva confronting…
A stirring Nabucco at Covent Garden
The run-up to curtain-up wasn’t auspicious. The Royal Opera House prefaced this opening night of the revival of Daniele Abbado’s 2013 production of Nabucco with an earlier announcement that the…
Puccini’s Tosca at the Royal Opera House
Jonathan Kent’s production of Tosca has been running at the Royal Opera House since 2006; this is its ninth revival. It is no surprise it is still there in repertoire.…
An RAM double bill: Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi
How wonderful at last to return to opera at the Royal Academy of Music. (I caught an excellent concert of chamber music by Bartók and Eötvös from musicians coached by…