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, …
Based on Schiller’s play Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) this opera deals with the machinations of a local aristocracy on a father and his daughter. The Count seeks to thwart the marriage of his son to the honest Luisa since he has a better match for him. The Count himself got his position though …
This production by Philipp Stölzl boasted a superbly engineered set with a giant moving head, two hands, and a balloon that rose more than 30 metres into the air. Mechanically a great achievement, but the staging was too busy by half, with singers and acrobats appearing all over the place, including inside and on top …
This 1818 Rossini opera about the Hebrew Exodus involves a love affair between the Pharaoh’s son Osiride and a Hebrew girl called Elcia. Moses’ attempts to lead his people out of captivity are opposed by Osiride, who is unwilling to lose Elcia, and after numerous emotional conflicts the opera ends with the crossing of the …
The cast for Glyndebourne’s new Barber — its first performance of this opera for over thirty years — exuded huge zest and youthful energy, encouraged by the infectious enthusiasm of conductor Enrique Mazzola, who brought Rossini’s score vividly to life. This was a team whose rapid-fire musicality drew cheers from the audience, with the inimitable …
Composed for Naples in 1838, but banned because of the subject matter, it took another ten years before a production of the original was mounted in Italy, just a few months after Donizetti’s death. In the meantime Paris had taken it on as a grand opera under the title Les Martyrs, with a new text …
Ultimately based on Ben Jonson’s play The Silent Woman, the main character is an elderly bachelor who suddenly takes it into his head to find a young wife and raise a family. This is partly to disinherit his nephew, Ernesto, who refuses to marry the woman chosen for him, and the solution to this problem …
