Opera
igor.toronyilalic
Gerald Barry's new operatic adaptation of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest delivers a number of firsts. The first opera score to contain an ostinato for smashed plates. The first orchestra to include a part for pistols and wellington boots. The first opera (that I know of) to offer the role of an aging mother to a male bass. And the first opera I've been to where I've cried with laughter.Granted: on paper it all sounds a bit Chuckle Brothers. Smashing plates, wellies, travesty roles aren't automatically funny at all. But like all the best jokes, these are not jokes. Barry doesn't Read more ...
ash.smyth
Since it obviously can't be taken in any way seriously, one big plus for Donizetti’s deeply silly (and, narratively, extremely sketchy) operetta is that it offers everyone plenty of room for manoeuvre(s), an opportunity the Covent Garden team had clearly decided they were not about to miss when putting together this twice-revived production.It is the Swiss Tyrol, sometime in the heyday of the Napoleonic empire, and the local peasants are fleeing from the advancing French troops. Chief among them is the Marquise de Berkenfeld, an elderly dowager type (beleaguered butler as standard) who sounds Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
The 2012 BBC Proms open on 13 July and end on 8 September. This is the full list of the 76 concerts. Book tickets here. Prom 1: First Night of the PromsFri 13 July 2012, 7.30pm, Royal Albert HallMark-Anthony Turnage - Canon Fever (3 mins)Elgar - Overture 'Cockaigne (In London Town)' (15 mins)Delius - Sea Drift (25 mins)Tippett - Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles (16 mins)Elgar - Coronation Ode (33 mins)Prom 2: Lerner & Loewe – My Fair LadySat 14 July 2012, 7.00pm, Royal Albert HallLoewe - My Fair Lady (170 mins)Prom 3: Debussy – Pelléas et MélisandeSun 15 July 2012, 7.00pm, Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Forget opera-glasses, the must-have accessory for the contemporary opera-goer in London is fast becoming a sturdy pair of wellingtons. No sooner had we all dried off from our voyage into The Heart of Darkness at the Royal Opera House (where Edward Dick’s watery set lapped dangerously close to the orchestra pit) than we find ourselves up to our knees in the boggy marshlands and treacherous pools of Sam Brown’s Jakob Lenz. The mire of psychological collapse has rarely been so vividly rendered, even on the opera stage (surely madness’s truest artistic home), but while visuals were striking, they Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Once again theartsdesk brings you its unmatched annual guide to Europe's music, film and arts festivals, complementing the UK festivals guide. With musicians and bands hunting out picturesque places to play in summertime, you can find an alternative Glasto in Serbia or Spain, combine an Italian film festival with your holiday plans. This year's listings include rock in Barcelona, Normandy and Stradbally, film in Venice, Warsaw and Cannes, opera in Bayreuth, Bregenz and Salzburg, dance in Avignon, Epidauros and Spoleto, contemporary arts in Istanbul and Zurich. This is the indispensable Read more ...
stephen.walsh
Is it my imagination, or are we getting more Wagner in concert than we used to? It could be a welcome development. How marvellous not to have to tremble at the thought of the latest flight of directorial fantasy: Isolde pregnant, Siegfried as an airline pilot, the Grail temple transformed into the Reichstag (no prizes for guessing which of these is a real case). Instead you can enjoy what Stravinsky called “the great art of Wagner from the direct source of that greatness and not through the medium of pygmies swarming around the stage”.This was a level-headed, well-prepared, if not always Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
David McVicar’s Rigoletto hurls full-frontal nudity and an orgy at the audience within its opening minutes – dramatic grenades to clear the well-worn ground ahead. Back in 2001 this may have been enough to shock-and-awe, but a decade and a couple of revivals on and it takes rather more. And more we certainly get in the current revival. Not only does Italian superstar tenor Vittorio Grigolo take his turn in the Duke’s tight britches, but John Eliot Gardiner takes charge in the pit for this, his first Rigoletto. With Dimitri Platanias also making his Royal Opera debut in the title role, there’s Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
No greater proof of the potency of the current Handel revival can be found than the London Handel Festival, now in its 35th year. The festival continues to fill concert halls and churches across London every Spring with the composer’s chamber repertoire, but it is the annual opera that remains unquestionably the main event. No matter how abstruse the choice (and this year’s Riccardo Primo – unperformed in London for some 20 years – is surely as unfamiliar as it gets) audiences return, lured by the energy of the festival’s Musical Director Laurence Cummings, and his cast of young singers from Read more ...