Mainly Opera and Ballet
Appreciation of a previously unknown opera can be helped enormously by the staging, and Keith Warner’s production evokes the mystery and repressed sensuality of this intriguing work by Samuel Barber. The story is that Vanessa, living with her mother the Baroness, and her niece Erika (possibly her daughter?), awaits the return of her one-time lover …
In this revival of last year’s successful new Meistersinger director Barrie Kosky there seems to an excess of stage farce that rather weakens the overall effect. Too much mockery is expended on Beckmesser, rendering him not just a klutz but a pathetic creature shuffling over to Eva on his knees in Act 3 as his prize …
Parsifal in Bayreuth is one of opera’s great experiences. It is also the location of its first performance in 1882 where the marvellous acoustic of the Festspielhaus welcomes the huge dynamic range that this ‘sacred festival drama’ embodies. A thirty-year moratorium forbade stage performances elsewhere until the end of 1913, though the Royal Albert Hall hosted …
This remarkable opera by Richard Strauss has become flavour of the month with productions at both Longborough and Opera Holland Park. Its brilliant libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal juxtaposes a young composer’s new opera on the plight of Ariadne with a commedia dell’arte entertainment, both to be performed for guests at the house of one …
One of Richard Strauss’s greatest works, with a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, this juxtaposes a young composer’s new opera on the plight of Ariadne with a commedia dell’arte entertainment, both to be performed for guests at the house of one of the super-rich. In the opera story Ariadne has absconded with Theseus, after helping …
Wow! This was the best thing so far this summer, and the audience acknowledged so with a standing ovation. Well deserved indeed, for it does what opera is supposed to do — engage the audience in an emotional experience rather than an intellectual exercise, which however cleverly contrived does not make one want to rush …
To understand the link from Handel’s opera seria to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Mozart’s Idomeneo is a key work that tackles Greek drama with knowing psychological insight. This sensible production by Stephen Medcalf gives clarity to the story, allowing the music to speak for itself and enhancing the theatrical aspects with a chorus performing …
This early Verdi opera is set in Peru, based on a play that Voltaire designed to criticise the smug superiority of conventional Christianity in a foreign context. Its libretto by Salvatore Cammarano of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples ignored most of Voltaire’s subtleties, but Verdi was delighted to be working with him and continued …
Of the half-dozen or so operas on this Shakespeare play, Gounod’s is undoubtedly the best, and Patrick Mason’s staging in pre-war fascist Italy gives an interesting modern take on the background to the feuding families. Knives and baseball bats come out amidst threats and fights, leaving Juliette a prey to her own burgeoning emotions, her …
The one non-singing role in this Mozart Singspiel— the Ottoman Pasha Selim — at the very end turns out to be the noblest character in the story. In the meantime his unrequited passion for Konstanze has led him to threaten terrible punishment if she fails to reciprocate his ardour. She has been purchased as a …
