Tag Archives: Gerald Finley
Posted on 2 May 2024
A performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with an international cast was enough to attract me to the Teatro Real in Madrid. With Gerald Finley at the top of his game as a sympathetic Hans Sachs of huge gravitas, and a memorable Beckmesser in Leigh Melrose this was a moving performance. See my review …
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Posted on 31 January 2023
Under the baton of Sebastian Weigle this was a terrific performance, after a slightly hesitant start, and the final chorus was sheer magic. It was the second revival of Tim Albery’s 2010 production, which portrays the entrance to the Venusberg as an on-stage replica of the Royal Opera’s proscenium arch complete with ROH curtains. See …
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Posted on 22 November 2019
This new production of Britten’s final opera is a sell-out. With Mark Padmore as the ageing writer Gustav von Aschenbach, and Gerald Finley in multiple roles (Traveller, Elderly fop, Gondolier, Barber, Hotel Manager, etc.) this was an outstanding performance, and the whole run was a sell-out before it opened — see my review in The …
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Posted on 16 January 2018
From the ringing tones of his Recondita armonia in early Act I to the passion and pathos of E lucevan le stelle in a last cry to life and love, this was Joseph Calleja’s night. His Cavaradossi was the shining highlight of opening night in this revival of Jonathan Kent’s 2006 production. Calleja’s interactions with …
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Posted on 8 February 2017
Since Covent Garden revived this opera in 2010 for the first time in over a century a quite different production set in a 1930s fascist state was unveiled at Holland Park. Both this and the original 1730 setting in the theatrical world of Paris, lovingly recreated in David McVicar’s production, work well, and with superb …
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Posted on 22 May 2016
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 …
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Posted on 30 June 2015
After the superb Proms concert performance of this opera four years ago, under Pappano with some of the same cast, this keenly anticipated new production fell sadly short. A black-clad SWAT team with machine guns, lighting from stage rear that glares out at the audience, on-stage characters not in the drama — seen it all before. …
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Posted on 3 May 2014
In this latest revival of David McVicar’s 2006 production, Gerald Finley’s beautifully nuanced and stylish performance of the Count was a joy to behold. Full of restrained power, his premonition of success with Susanna expressed by the recitative and aria early in Act III showed a man in huge command of his household, only of …
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Posted on 1 December 2013
The Royal Opera House’s choice for Wagner’s bicentenary is a new production of Parsifal by director Stephen Langridge and designer Alison Chitty, the same team who gave us Birtwistle’s Minotaur five years ago. Here they achieved similar dramatic clarity using a Cube, which changes from opaque to translucent to open, partly to illustrate scenes from …
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Posted on 22 May 2011
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 …
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Posted on 18 February 2011
This is an opera for today’s celebrity culture, where parts of the media, eager for salacious details, are happy to pick on anyone available. But Anna Nicole Smith was not just anyone — she worked as a stripper and snagged an 89 year-old billionaire, J. Howard Marshall I, though it’s said they never lived together. He …
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Posted on 9 February 2011
This ‘Insight’ evening gave the audience some background to the forthcoming new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage, and it was most informative and well presented. For a review of the first night, click here. “What’s it like to see your picture all over the London Underground?” asked Elaine Padmore, director of opera, referring to the ubiquitous …
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Posted on 5 October 2010
As the evening warmed up we were treated to a very fine duet between Osborn and Cabell in Act II, and a lovely soliloquy by Finley in Act III.
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Posted on 24 July 2010
Gerald Finley is the perfect Don, suave and brutal … both he and Luca Pisaroni as Leporello performed with an insouciance that gave the impression either one would happily shop the other if push came to shove.
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Posted on 19 June 2009
It also featured others with a strong Glyndebourne connection, such as Gerald Finley, Sarah Connolly, Emma Bell, and Kate Royal, who were all in the Glyndebourne chorus at one time, along with such luminaries as Thomas Allen, Sergei Leiferkus, Felicity Lott, and Anne Sofie von Otter.
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Posted on 12 May 2009
…what really drove Britten’s masterpiece home was Stuart Skelton [as Grimes], Felicity Palmer [as Mrs. Sedley], the chorus, and the conductor Edward Gardner.
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Posted on 30 January 2009
In this imaginative production by Willy Decker, Paul was strongly sung by Stephen Gould, and Marie/Marietta by Nadja Michael, who did a superb job of the part, teasingly sexy, both as girlfriend and among her acting troupe
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Posted on 28 November 2008
The music by John Adams is wonderful, but the libretto by Peter Sellars falls far short of expressing the potential drama of this story. As a piece of theatre this opera fails …
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