Mainly Opera and Ballet
Bregenz, at one end of Lake Konstanz in Austria, hosts an opera festival every summer. This year on the vast Lake Stage, which plays to an Amphitheatre seating 6,800, they performed Madama Butterfly, and inside the auditorium Verdi’s Ernani. This was an early Verdi opera, once very popular, but later eclipsed by his middle period, …
A thrilling revival of the 2016 production, once again under the excellent baton of Gianluca Marcianò. Clive Bayley and Ruxandra Donose reprised their beautifully nuanced performances as Philip II and Princess Eboli, joined this time by international rising star Leonardo Capalbo as Carlo, and Brett Polegato as Rodrigo, both superb, with Marina Costa-Jackson singing strongly …
There seem to have been a plethora of Bohèmes recently. The one by English Touring Opera last autumn shows a performance can tug unbearably on the heart-strings accompanied by only the simplest of sets, and the final run of John Copley’s Covent Garden production shows that even with the most glorious sets and world’s top …
At the end, after Onegin has clung uselessly to Tatyana and she has pulled herself away and left the stage, we see Prince Gremin walk across the upper level holding a pistol. A fine dramatic effect, following many others in this beautifully honed production. The splitting of the set into an upper and lower level, …
