Opera Reviews
Caligula, English National OperaSaturday, 26 May 2012
Mass murder. Incest. Rape. Madness. This is quite a lot to be getting on with for a three-hour opera. Too much perhaps. Indeed, German composer Detlev Glanert seems so busy trying to pack in all the Grand Guignol elements that one expects from a portrait of Caligula that he never quite gets around to saying anything interesting about any of it.
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Classical CDs Weekly: Massenet, David Russell, WeinbergSaturday, 26 May 2012
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La Cenerentola, Glyndebourne Festival OperaThursday, 24 May 2012
Rossini's La Cenerentola is not an opera that I'd normally recommend to anyone with even half a brain. It takes the simple if mildly nauseating little tale of Cinderella, pads it out with parental abuse and drawn out cliffhangers, and ends in a pass-the-sick-bag denouement of "Goodness Triumphant". Yet, in an act worthy of the fairy godmother herself, Glyndebourne has transformed the piece into something unmissable. Read more... |
The Cunning Little Vixen, Glyndebourne Festival OperaMonday, 21 May 2012
Glyndebourne nature, it seems, runs along as smoothly as the much discussed new wind turbine on the hill. Within the theatre, though, all is flux: director Melly Still and Vladimir Jurowski, conducting an incandescent London Philharmonic Orchestra, show just how flexible it's possible to be with the viciousness and the vivacity in Janáček's kaleidoscope of birth, copulation, death and a redemption of sorts in celebration of the natural order. Read more... |
Tristan und Isolde, Welsh National OperaSunday, 20 May 2012
Welsh National Opera has a good track record with Wagner. Its Meistersinger of two summers ago is already the stuff of legend (and alas not likely to return to reality); farther back one recalls a more than respectable Parsifal, a notable Ring cycle, and an old Tristan under Goodall that’s still talked about in hushed whispers. Read more... |
Falstaff, Royal OperaWednesday, 16 May 2012
I didn't know whether to sigh or to yawn. Another opera. Another 50s set. At least it started well. In an obsessively wood-panelled hunting lodge, fat Falstaff (Ambrogio Maestri) lies in his bed in filthy long johns amid a sea of empty silver platters, working out a way to pay his bills and satisfy his lust. Not a 50s cliché in sight - yet. |
Madam Butterfly, English National OperaWednesday, 09 May 2012
Origami birds flock in graceful chorus, a dancer flutters two fans into a pulsing captive butterfly, curtains of cherry blossom descend over glowing paper lanterns, and of course a small bunraku puppet steals the show. Seven years on Anthony Minghella’s Madam Butterfly is as beautiful as ever, and – if possible – even more Japanese. Read more... |
Carousel, Opera NorthSunday, 06 May 2012
Feeling apprehensive about opera companies tackling Broadway musicals is understandable. So if you’re still wincing at the memory of Leonard Bernstein’s excruciating 1980s recording of West Side Story, relax - director Jo Davies’s intention was to cast “opera singers who can really, really act” and avoid the potential pitfalls of a fully-fledged operatic approach. And the singing in this new production is consistently good; brilliant in places. Read more... |
Einstein on the Beach, Barbican TheatreSaturday, 05 May 2012
Einstein on the Beach was meant to be one of the jewels in the crown for the Cultural Olympiad. The celebrated 1970s collaboration between Philip Glass, Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs - which Susan Sontag claimed to be one of the greatest theatrical experiences of the 20th century - was receiving its UK premiere at the Barbican Theatre last night, thirty-six years after it was first created. And what we got was a technical shambles. Read more... |
Maestro at the Opera, BBC TwoSaturday, 05 May 2012
Even in this age of desperate reality TV, you have to have doubts about any show that tries to convert “celebrities” into serious contenders in an alien field. Is it serious or a padded-out joke? To an extent we’ve been here, or close by, before. Read more... |
Massenet: Werther Rolando Villazón, Sophie Koch, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Antonio Pappano (DG)Pages
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