Caravaggio’s depiction (1598-99) of the climactic moment when the young, beautiful, physically weak Judith seizes the head of Holofernes by the enemy general’s hair and, flinching with distaste, cleaves the neck of the occupying Assyrian with his own sword, evokes Holofernes’ terror with visceral precision – eyes and screaming mouth are wide open – and is shockingly theatrical, the starkly lit figures embraced by blackness.
La Piet‡ in Rome
Say “La Piet‡” and you think immediately of Michelangelo’s Rome Piet‡. Just now Roman Oscar-winning film composer Nicola Piovani has asked us to contemplate two additional Piet‡’s in Rome, a mother whose son is dead by overdose, and a mother whose son starved to death.
Matthias Goerne: Schumann – Liederkreis, op 24 & Kernerlieder
New from Harmonia Mundi, Matthias Goerne and Lief Ove Andsnes: Robert Schumann – Liederkreis, op 24 and Kernerlieder. Goerne and Andsnes have a partnership based on many years of working together, which makes this new release, originally recorded in late 2018, well worth hearing.
Orfeo ed Euridice in Rome
No wrecked motorcycle (director Harry Kupfer’s 1987 Berlin Orfeo), no wrecked Citroen and black hearse (David Alagna’s 2008 Montpellier OrfÈe [yes! tenorissimo Roberto Alagna was the OrfÈe]), no famed ballet company (the Joffrey Ballet) starring in L.A. Opera’s 2018 Orpheus and Eurydice).
Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel – a world premiere at English National Opera
Jack the Ripper is as luridly fascinating today as he was over a century ago, so it was no doubt sensationalist of the marketing department of English National Opera to put the Victorian serial killer’s name first and the true subject of Iain Bell’s new opera – his victims, the women of Whitechapel – as something of an after-thought. Font size matters, especially if it’s to sell tickets.
Tosca at the Met
?The 1917 Met Tosca production hung around for 50 years, bested by the 1925 San Francisco Opera production that lived to the ripe old age of 92.† The current Met production is just 2 years old but has the feel of something that can live forever.
Drama Queens and Divas at the ROH: Handel’s Berenice
A war ‘between love and politics’: so librettist Antonio Salvi summarised the conflict at the heart of Handel’s 1737 opera, Berenice. Well, we’ve had a surfeit of warring politics of late, but there’s been little love lost between opposing factions, and the laughs that director Adele Thomas and her team supply in this satirical and spicy production at the ROH’s stunningly re-designed Linbury Theatre have been in severely short supply.
MartÌn y Soler: Una cosa rara
Una cosa rara, ossia Bellezza ed onest‡. Dramma giocoso in two acts.
Music composed by Vicente MartÌn y Soler (1754–1806). Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte from the comedy La luna de la Sierra by Luis VÈlez de Guevara.
Mozart’s Mass in C minor at the Royal Festival Hall
A strange concert, this, in that, although chorally conceived, it proved strongest in the performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto: not so much a comment on the choral singing as on the conducting of Dan Ludford-Thomas.
Boston Lyric Opera’s East Coast Premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale
Anne Bogart directs East Coast premiere of Ruders & Bentley’s take on Margaret Atwood’s novel.