Mainly Opera and Ballet
Of the four operas I saw in four days at Buxton, The Boatswain’s Mate by Ethel Smyth was the most fun. Like Haydn’s La Canterina this was really an operetta, both providing a delightful contrast to the blood and thunder of Verdi’s Ernani. Only Peter Brook’s take on Carmen seriously disappointed — see my review …
In her delightfully sung aria una voce poco fa the soprano Rosina shows herself attracted to the voice of a secret admirer. He later reveals himself as Count Almaviva in this wonderful Rossini comic opera. It is based on a plot by Pierre Beaumarchais, following the Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte, and the ENO did …
This is the fourth revival of the Royal Opera’s 2004 production by Benoit Jacquot, once again conducted by Antonio Pappano who produced excellent playing from the orchestra in a hugely lyrical rendering of the score. But is it not time for a change of Massenet operas — a full staging of Thaïs for example? Se …
A terrific revival, fully expressing the enormous subtlety of this Massenet opera under Edward Gardner’s musical direction. Superbly cast with Juan Diego Flórez as Werther and Isabel Leonard as Charlotte giving beautifully nuanced performances — my review in The Article.
This truly wonderful production by Jonathan Miller, now in its thirteenth revival, is a star in the ENO firmament, and a friend seeing it for the first time was bowled over by the costumes, sets and lighting. Under revival director Peter Relton, whose Tosca launched the new Grange Park opera this past summer, it looks …
For a large opera house Verdi’s Don Carlo is quite a challenge, even in the four (rather than five) act version seen here. The great auto-da-fé scene at the end of Act II, where Carlo leads in a deputation from Flanders, threatens his father Philip II and is disarmed by Rodrigo, before the burning of …
The first revival of this David McVicar production, with its glorious designs by Vicki Mortimer, beautifully lit by Paule Constable, seems even better than it did five years ago. As Wagner’s only comic opera — apart from his very early Liebesverbot — Meistersinger needs the light touch that McVicar so ably gives it. The marvellous …
In Schiller’s play Maria Stuart, the original drama for this Donizetti opera, Elizabeth I meets Mary Queen of Scots. Such a meeting never took place, but it makes for gripping theatre, and this second opera in the WNO ‘Three Queens’ series is a winner. The designs by Madeleine Boyd continue to use the sombre black …
Three Queens is the main theme of Welsh National Opera’s Autumn 2013 season, which opened last night with Anna Bolena. This was Donizetti’s first really big success after more than thirty other operas, and its darkly dramatic atmosphere is well-served by Alessandro Talevi’s production. At the start of the opera Anne Boleyn’s power has already …
This new production of Meistersinger by David McVicar elicited thunderous applause at the end. And what an end it was, with Hans Sachs’s monologue being given its full force in a way I’ve not seen before. When Walther refuses the award of Mastership from Pogner, Gerald Finley as Sachs draws him aside to stage right, and his …
A mother’s anger leads unintentionally to the death of her adored illegitimate son. Shades of Verdi’s Rigoletto here, where a father’s anger leads to the death of his beloved daughter, but there are strong differences. Where Rigoletto is a physically ugly man with a hunchback, Lucrezia Borgia is a beautiful woman, now in her early forties. …
