Mainly Opera and Ballet
As an old opera buff once told me, anyone confused by the story line in Khovanshchina should simply treat it as a series of tableaux — wise advice since Mussorgsky telescoped the history of three different uprisings onto a massive musical canvas painted with emotional confrontations, religious fundamentalism, human ambition and a struggle for the …
Monteverdi’s Orfeo is a triumph of harmony, both musically and in the Classical lines of its dramatic construction. This Proms performance too was a triumph, sidelining the artless production put on by the Royal Opera at the Roundhouse in January. First composed in 1607 for the Gonzaga court at Mantua where Monteverdi was director of …
How many people know that London and Berlin are twin cities? I didn’t, but it helps explain why Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle came to the Proms with the Ring last year, and Runnicles and Berlin’s Deutsche Opera with Salome this year. Yet it was more than just the city of Berlin that was common …
After all that kerfuffle about Octavian at the opening night of Glyndebourne’s new Rosenkavalier it was a pleasure to see this concert performance and confirm two things. Glyndebourne was absolutely right to choose Tara Erraught for the role, and while I blamed director Richard Jones for the ill-fitting clothing on opening night (see my review) …
Ballet in the round has its advantages, particularly the greater scope for patterns when playing to all sides of the auditorium. These can involve lots of dancers, or just a few as in early Act III with the Capulet parents, Paris, Juliet and her nurse interweaving in an intriguing way. You need a little height …
The Albert Hall was the first venue for a concert performance of Parsifal, at least in England, just two years after the Bayreuth premiere of 1882. At that time copyright protection restricted staged performances to Bayreuth, but who needs a full staging? This 2013 performance with powerful musical direction by Mark Elder, and subtle stage …
This was an intriguing performance of Tannhäuser, with Donald Runnicles conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as chief conductor of the first and music director of the second. After the long overture, there floated down from high in the gallery the lovely voices of several chorus ladies …
At the end, Barenboim held his baton up, and five thousand people held their applause. As he let the baton drop the cheers started, and continued until he came on one last time to make a small speech, thanking the orchestra, singers, and indeed the audience for its wonderful silence and rapt attention. He also …
One of the great things about opera at the Proms, apart from the avoidance of strange fancies by the stage director, is being able to see the orchestra and instrumental soloists. This was particularly valuable towards the end of Act I as the chorus of sailors at the rear made their presence felt, and the …
A young man brought up in a foreign country encounters an old man who gets in his way, so he sweeps him aside with his sword, not knowing it is his grandfather. Shades of the Oedipus myth here, but the curse comes not from marrying his mother but taking the Ring. The old man, Wotan, …
At both La Scala and the Berlin Staatsoper, I saw Daniel Barenboim conduct similar casts, in the same production by Guy Cassiers whose Walküre Act III is shown on the front cover of the BBC libretto. The Proms have brought over the Staatsoper orchestra from Berlin, which forms a terrific team with Barenboim conducting, and …
What a terrific start to the Ring this was. Even before Daniel Barenboim entered the auditorium, to huge applause, there was a real buzz of anticipation and it all ended with a sustained ovation. I was not intending to write this up until the end of the cycle, particularly having heard the same conductor and …
This concert was a fine mixture of solos, duets, and trios, plus two choral sections, and purely orchestral pieces played here by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Claudio Vandelli. It began with that delightful Rossini overture to L’italiana in Algeri, which starts almost silently before moving into higher gear. This gave just the …
