Mainly Opera and Ballet
Cav and Pag may be old warhorses, but when given gripping productions with excellent singers they are thoroughly compelling. Both these productions at the Royal Opera do the trick, and under the baton of Daniel Oren both operas packed a huge emotional punch. See my review in The Article.
Huge fun — and springtime is just the right time to revive this stylish and colourfully stylized production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier. Its previous outing in 2010 was also in Spring, the four main principals being the same as today: Thomas Allen as poet and opera librettist Prosdocimo, Alessandro Corbelli as the cuckolded …
Is it not time the Royal Opera House abandoned David McVicar’s 2001 production? The fake licentiousness of the first scene may be huge fun for the supers and for movement and revival director Leah Hausman, but it detracts from the drama and spoils the music, which at times becomes mere background to unmusical whoops and …
This 2007 Laurent Pelly production is set in 1950s Italy with Dulcamara, the charlatan purveyor of an elixir, arriving in an articulated lorry housing a mobile café. There are also bicycles, a moped and motor scooter, even a dog, giving a charmingly simple feel to the rural community. In dress rehearsal for this second revival the movements …
Rossini’s music is full of fun, and this production has a sense of spontaneity, as if it were Commedia dell’arte.
