Mainly Opera and Ballet
Wagner’s Flying Dutchman is the first opera in his canon of ten mature works. He claims it was based on a novella by Heinrich Heine, but there is more to the story than that, and this excellent production was made musically gripping under the baton of Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási, with singers on top form. See …
In Wagner’s Tannhäuser the representation of the Venusberg scene, compounded by its subsequent appeal within Tannhäuser’s mind, is a perennial problem. But in Tobias Kratzer’s new production the nineteenth century image of a den of debauchery is replaced by an exhilarating, wildly modern approach with four misfits: Venus, a dwarf, a black drag queen, and …
Keith Warner’s production of the Ring alludes to connections with modern physics: in Rheingold the tarnhelm deforms the gridlines of Cartesian space to the curved space-time of Einstein’s General Relativity, and in Götterdämmerung, Siegfried’s Rhine journey traverses both space and time. In Siegfried Act 1, Mime adds mathematical symbols to those already written and in …
As the Royal Opera and Kasper Holten part company, this is his last throw of the dice. Like many continental European directors he delivers us a ‘concept’, and in the first two acts I was puzzled to know why it necessitated the abandoning of the church, Sach’s house, Pogner’s house, and the street. Act I …
This first revival of Tim Albery’s 2010 production was very welcome, with a cast in some ways stronger than that of five seasons ago. The most prominent feature of the production is the on-stage version of the main proscenium arch complete with Royal Opera House curtains, representing the entrance to the Venusberg. Its later decayed …
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 …
Jeffrey Tate in the orchestra pit gave Wagner’s Flying Dutchman a wonderful clarity, helped of course by the singers, particularly Anja Kampe as a beautifully pure voiced Senta. This was the role in which she made her Covent Garden debut when the production was new in 2009. The singers for the other main roles are …
