Tag Archives: Juan Diego Flórez

Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Royal Opera, Nov 2024

E. T. A. Hoffmann was an inspired writer of stories that melded fantasy and reality, and three in particular informed this opera by Offenbach. It is unquestionably the greatest work by this French master of operetta, and a new production at Covent Garden is hugely welcome — see my review in The Article.

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Werther, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, September 2019

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.

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Orphée et Eurydice, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, ROH, September 2015

It seems the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice is flavour of the year. Monteverdi’s Orfeo appeared at the Roundhouse in January in an artless staging by the Royal Opera, before the BBC Proms gave it a beautifully elegant semi-staging under John Eliot Gardiner this summer. Now it’s the Royal Opera’s turn to succeed, this time …

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La Cenerentola, Metropolitan Opera, Metopera live cinema relay, 10 May 2014

For those who tend to go to first nights, an advantage of these Met cinema screenings is the welcome unity they provide between conductor and singers who have already performed on stage several times together. Under the baton of Fabio Luisi the singers were very much at one with the orchestra, providing Rossini’s music with …

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La Donna del Lago, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2013

Two tenors love the same soprano — Elena, the Lady of the Lake — but she ends up with her beloved mezzo, Malcolm. The tenors, Uberto, really King James V of Scotland, and Highland Chieftain Rodrigo, are politically and militarily opposed, and though Elena’s father Duglas insists she marry Rodrigo, he is conveniently killed and …

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Le Comte Ory, Metropolitan Opera, live cinema relay, April 2011

This uniquely Rossinian opera — his penultimate — is wonderful fun, and I’m delighted the Met has put it on, and done so in a cinema screening for the whole world to share. It’s not often performed because it needs three superb singers — in the roles of Count Ory, his page Isolier, and the …

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La Fille du Régiment, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2010

Then to top it all there was the beautiful musical direction of Bruno Campanella. His conducting had a rhythmic energy that received a spontaneous round of applause immediately after the overture

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La Sonnambula, live cinema screening from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, March 2009

With Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez as the lovers Amina and Elvino, this promised to be a superb performance and it was.

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