It was a fairly straight forward Rusalka, even though it took place at an on-stage Olympic style swimming pool, somewhere. Rusalka did kill the prince with a spear fishing gun,…
Category: Staged Operas
Das Rheingold in Paris
Any Calixto Bieito production is news, but it is great big news when he takes on the first installment of opera’s notorious four opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The…
I Puritani in Paris
Bellini’s tenth and last opera, I Puritani, took Paris by storm in 1835. Judging from the wild applause and standing ovation just now, it has lost none of its appeal…
Castor et Pollux in Paris
Just when you thought DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) was dead, American stage director Peter Sellers brazenly enlisted 16 highly trained (various cool, pop styles) dancers of color from America, France…
A simple, effective staging of a Thea Musgrave’s politically intricate opera Mary, Queen of Scots
Given the obsession with the Tudors – particularly as TV, stage or literary drama, as well as historical documentary – it makes for a welcome variation on this subject that…
Of loneliness, dragons and heroics: Wagner’s Siegfried in a staging by Regents Opera
Nobody should ever assume that creative artists constantly engage in mutual back-slapping. Tolstoy’s verdict on Wagner’s Siegfried, the second day of the Ring cycle, was vicious: “A stupid puppet show…
A domestic drama as good as any: Wagner’s Die Walküre in the Regents Opera Ring
A kitchen sink drama really is nothing new. It’s been around for as long as human beings have been inhabiting a shared domestic space. The first act of Wagner’s Die…
Das Rheingold kicks off Regents Opera’s Ring in a ring
Everything about Wagner is big – very big. The instrumentation for the preliminary evening of Der Ring der Nibelungen alone encompasses eight horns doubling on Wagner tubas, seven harps and…
Treachery and lechery in English National Opera’s new The Marriage of Figaro
I’ve always found it strange that in the English language the title of one of the most popular pieces in the repertory is rendered as The Marriage of Figaro. The…
Compelling performances from OperaUpClose:
Riders to the Sea & The Last Bit of the Moon
What does one perform with Vaughan Williams’s seldom heard one act tragedy about a mother who has lost her last surviving son somewhere off the west coast of Ireland? Drawn…