Macbeth, Grange Festival, June 2022
June 27, 2022What a wonderful production, simple, bewitching and highly effective. The use of dancers helped the atmosphere (unlike their use in many productions), dark and menacing. Brilliantly conducted by young Italian conductor Francesco Cilluffo who gave this relatively early Verdi the energy it deserves. My review in The Article.
Die Tote Stadt, Longborough, June 2022
June 26, 2022In 1920, two years after the First World War, Europe was dealing with loss, and an ex-child prodigy, now 23, wrote an opera dealing with devastating loss. Unlike the novel Bruges-la-Morte on which it was based Die Tote Stadt has an ending that allows the protagonist the chance of recovery. This widower Paul lives in Bruges among the relics …
Otello, Grange Park Opera, June 2022
June 21, 2022In this David Alden production the opera’s title might almost be Iago, the name it was given in its early creation since there was already an Otello by Rossini. Simon Keenlyside’s Iago is very much the dark star, seen at the beginning of each act, half hidden by the curtain. At the end he sits in the …
La Gioconda, Grange Park Opera, June 2022
June 18, 2022Why don’t we see this opera more often? It’s remarkably well constructed by a composer, Ponchielli who taught Puccini and others, and its librettist Arrigo Boito created the librettos for the late masterpieces of Verdi. This production was terrific (apart from a terribly choreographed Dance of the Hours) and the casting wonderful — see my …
La Bohème, Glyndebourne, June 2022
June 13, 2022In this stripped-back production the usual three sets: the Bohemians’ garret (Acts 1 and 4), Café Momus (Act 2), and the border post (Act 3), have been combined into one. Sentimentality has been entirely stripped away, and Death is personified by a tall, gaunt man in a long coat. His riveting stage presence is obtrusive and detracts …
The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Grange Park Opera, June 2022
June 12, 2022Janáček pokes fun at philistines and anticipates Woke in this remarkable staging. Mr Brouček, a Czech Everyman, likes his beer, but his inebriation leads him on two imaginary excursions, one to the Moon among what we now call the Wokerati, and one to the early fifteenth century when Protestantism began in Prague. See my review …
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