Acis and Galatea at the Buxton Opera Festival
My first opera in a theatre since March 2020 and – you might have thought – a splendid choice for the occasion: Handel’s zestful, melodic and touching piece, Acis and Galatea, in Buxton’s lovely Opera House. The performance was sold…
The Mariinsky in Shchedrin’s Dead Souls
Late 20th century Russian opera has not been much noticed in the West. While striking pieces by Schnittke and Weinberg have made an impact, these can in no sense be regarded as emanating from the Soviet Russian mainstream. The Grove…
Haydn’s Orlando Paladino at the Berlin Staatsoper
Joseph Haydn is, without doubt, one of my favourite composers; I relish his freshness, inventiveness and humour but also, when in a serious mood, his sensibility and compassion. Although, for concert managers, he has tended to be overshadowed by Mozart…
My Operatic Highlights 2020
LIVE PERFORMANCES All-round performance: Orfeo, Nederlands Reisopera Conductor: Pinchas Steinberg, Violanta, Turin Stage director: Monique Wagemakers, Orfeo, Nederlands Reisopera Singer: Anne Sophie Duprels, Risurrezione, Florence Opera house: Teatru Manoel, Valletta STREAMED PERFORMANCES All-round performance: La Gazza Ladra, Milan, La…
Arne’s Thomas and Sally at the Leeds Opera Festival
My thirst for live opera has, after over five months of deprivation, at last been assuaged. As part of the Northern Opera Group’s enterprising Leeds Opera Festival, Thomas Arne’s little piece Thomas and Sally was performed, bravely complying with the…
Meyerbeer’s Etoile du Nord from Kokkola
Performances of Meyerbeer’s L’Étoile du Nord are rare. Experiencing a video of a performance given by the West Coast Opera Kokkola, not a well-known group, even in Finland, I can understand why. Although it was relayed with English subtitles and…
Postillon de Lonjumeau at Opéra Comique
Being deprived of live performances has created opportunities for searching among videos available online for famous works on the borders of the repertory which have always eluded one. In the last few months, I have caught up with, for example,…
Verdi’s Corsaro at Parma in 2008
Completing the composition in somewhat of a rush, Verdi could not have thought much of Il Corsaro, because he did not take the trouble to attend its first performances in Trieste. My first encounter with the work indicates that, if…
Schreker’s Schmied von Gent relayed from Antwerp
History was not kind to Franz Schreker. He was, during the Weimar Republic, a leading German composer and in the operatic repertory outshone only by Richard Strauss but, because he was Jewish, his works were banned by the Nazis and…
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Invisible City of Kitezh, given at the Dutch National Opera
One compensating feature for the absence of live operatic performances is the ability to choose from a wide range of works streamed from major opera houses. I have been searching in vain for a live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Legend…
World premiere of Fagerlund’s Autumn Sonata, streamed from Helsinki
Operas have, of course, often been derived from plays but turning a film into an opera is relatively rare. And if one looks to cinema for operatic inspiration, would one choose the redoubtable Ingmar Bergman as auteur? The anguish and…
Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel Streamed from Munich
Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel is an oddity. The composer did not live to see a complete performance and it has never secured a place in the opera repertory. Written in the 1920s, it is characteristic of that period in its expressionist…
Relay of Weinberger’s Frühlingsstürme
Preferring the real thing, I have hitherto avoided live streaming from opera houses and indeed have also eschewed radio and television broadcasts and even DVDs and CDs. However, the current privations have forced me to rethink this policy and so…
Rossini’s Otello in Malta
Rossini’s Otello provides a major challenge for smaller opera houses, not the least because it requires five tenors capable of singing the composer’s often florid and high-lying tessitura. And, in dramatic terms, it falls well short of Verdi’s treatment of…
Italian premiere of Korngold’s Violanta
Erich Korngold’s one-act opera Violanta was written when the composer was only seventeen and, on a first encounter with it, it would seem in one respect that his youth shows. The storyline has the heroine, who has been busy plotting…
Alfano’s Risurrezione in Florence
Alfano’s Risurrezione is certainly not a neglected masterpiece. The critic who described its music as “unalloyed sludge, turgid and torpid” may have exaggerated but the score is unmemorable and, worse, formulaic, employing in a predictable fashion the devices familiar from…
My Operatic Highlights 2019
DIRECTORS Martin Glaser: Don Carlo, Brno (http://bit.ly/2EdpNAi) Lotte de Beer: Didone Abbandonata, Basel (http://bit.ly/2N93NNx) DESIGNERS Christian Schmidt: Rodelinda, Frankfurt (http://bit.ly/2W0y3xW) Rifail Ajdarpasic: Pénélope, Frankfurt (http://bit.ly/2DD1E4R) CONDUCTORS Maxime Pascal: Pelléas et Mélisande, Barlin SO (http://bit.ly/2VPRft6 Emmanuelle Haïm: Hippolyte et…
Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at Manchester’s RNCM
Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, with the dominance it gives to female singers, might seem to be a good choice for student productions since at the conservatoires today talented young male singers are less readily available. Yet the work also poses…
Fauré’s Pénélope in Frankfurt
I had not heard a bar of Gabriel Fauré’s only opera Pénélope and, in keen anticipation of a rare performance in Frankfurt, I speculated on what I might expect to hear, given my experience of his more familiar compositions. Romantic,…
Brecht/Weill Mahagonny in Radebeul
You are in the theatre for Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and are ready for the brilliance of Brecht’s sharp and sour political libretto and Kurt Weill’s hit music hall melodies, but do take heed of the richness of…