Norma at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
Many people go to bel canto opera for what its name indicates, beautiful singing. Yet, without dramatic impulse, even the most accomplished and virtuoso vocalisation can leave one dissatisfied. The large audience attending the new production of Norma at the…
Marschner’s Hans Heiling in Regensburg
Heinrich Marschner’s opera Hans Heiling, like the better known Der Freschütz from the same period, has the typical German romantic obsession with the other world and its impact on human nature. In this case, Heiling, the prince of the earth…
Boris Blacher’s Nachtschwalbe in Leipzig
Boris Blacher was a prominent German composer in the period immediately following the Second World War but his works appear now largely to be ignored. So the Leipzig Opera showed enterprise in mounting the short chamber opera Die Nachtschwalbe. It…
Elektra at the Dresden Semperoper
At the Dresden Semperoper you expect to encounter good performances of the operas of Richard Strauss, not the least Elektra which received its premiere here in 1909. And when the cast boasts Iréne Theorin in the title role, Camilla Nylund…
Smetana’s Libuše in Plzen
Libuše is a strange piece. A myth set in pre-Christian times, it purports to locate the origins of the Czech nation in ideals of reconciliation and love of nature. The music is Smetana in his stirringly patriotic, rather than lyrical,…
Martinu’s Greek Passion in Essen
Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific and eclectic composer. There is a vast gulf between the fun-loving works dating from his association with Les Six in Paris and those later in his career, serious and intense in character. The Greek Passion…
Ernani at Liège
There are two types of opera production which irritate me enormously. One is when the creative team wants at any cost to provoke the audience with an interpretation which is perverse, vulgar or silly. The second, at the other extreme…
Tristan and Meistersinger at the Erl Festival
The Erl Festival in the Inn valley among the Tyrolean foothills is now in its 18th year but the current performances of Tristan und Isolde constitute the first Wagner to be heard in the new Festspielhaus; others have taken place…
Donizetti’s Poliuto at Glyndebourne
Poliuto at Glyndebourne, the 20th Donizetti opera I have seen – only 55 to go! It is based on Corneille’s play Polyeucte which was a set text for my French A Level. The librettto swings, sometimes, awkwardly between love and…
Opera North’s Semi-Staged Dutchman
Opera North has had great success with its semi-staged instalments of the Ring – to be performed in its entirety next season – and it was understandable that they should wish to explore other Wagnerian works with the same approach….
Galuppi’s Alessandro nell’Indie in Würzburg
Baldassare Galuppi, who was a successor to Handel as director of the Italian Opera at London’s Haymarket Theatre, wrote over 70 works for the stage, very few of which have seen the light of day since. But Alessandro nell’Indie, given…
Luisa Miller at Stuttgart
The performance of Verdi’s Luisa Miller at the Stuttgart Oper was a revival of a production mounted in 2010 and it revealed again the power of this work, with its intense musical content and compact dramatic structure. The conductor Marco…
Goldmark’s Queen of Sheba in Freiburg
Die Königin von Saba is a German romantic grand opera first performed in 1875. Immensely popular in its day, with its combination of an exotic setting, religion and sex, and big choral scenes, it is now largely forgotten. As regards…
Offenbach’s Fantasio in Karlsruhe
Offenbach wrote over a hundred works for the stage and understandably many of them have not been deemed worthy of a revival in modern times. Fantasio is not often performed and, on the basis of the current production at Karlsruhe,…
Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Komische Oper
The first night of Giulio Cesare at the Komische Oper, resulted, unusually but deservedly, in resounding cheers for the production team of director Lydia Steier and designers Katharina Schlipf and Ursula Kudrna. The focus of their staging was Cleopatra as…
Egk’s Peer Gynt at Braunschweig
Werner Egk’s operatic version of Peer Gynt is, as demonstrated by the recent performance at the Braunschweig Staatstheater, a highly effective work. Eclectic musically, with affinities to Kurt Weill, Richard Strauss and Paul Hindemith, it is easy on the ear…
The Rake’s Progress at the Berlin Staatsoper
The performance of The Rake’s Progress by the Berlin Staatsoper at the Schiller Theater was musically one of the best I can recall. Domingo Hindoyan in the pit emphasised the lyrical and dramatic dimensions of the score rather than the…
Carl Nielsen’s Saul and David in Copenhagen
I have been waiting thirty years for a performance of Carl Nielsen’s Saul and David. My only previous experience of the work had been an inauthentic recording in English with Boris Christoff, Elizabeth Söderström and Alexander Young which did not…
Luca Francesconi’s Quartett in Malmö
Luca Francesconi’s Quartett first performed at La Scala in 2011 and subsequently given at ROH’s Linbury Studio and elsewhere has recently had a most successful Nordic première in Malmö Based on Heiner Müller’s play, a reflection on Les Liaisons Dangereuses…
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Monte Carlo Opera
The long-standing presence of Russians in Monte Carlo going back to Diaghilev and beyond might help to explain the choice of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for a gala performance at the famous opera house based in the Casino, although…