Siegfried in Leipzig
About to experience the third episode in the Leipzig Ring, I was a little apprehensive. The First Act of Siegfried is my least favourite in the whole of the cycle primarily because of its racist content but also because I…
Die Walküre in Leipzig
Evening Two of the Leipzig Ring – or, if one is to be pedantic, in Wagnerian terms the First Evening, following the Prologue (Rheingold). Die Walküre is certainly the most popular part of the cycle, perhaps because of its glorious…
Das Rheingold in Leipzig
Leipzig has strong associations with Wagner and a landmark centenary production of the Ring was given there by Joachim Herz, one of the then formidable East German directors. This was understandably a radical anti-capitalist, Marxist interpretation. For its more recent…
My Theatre Highlights 2017
The Goat by Edward Albee at Haymarket Theatre London By brilliantly using the audience’s discomfiture with bestiality to explore the ambiguity between comedy and tragedy the play forces us to examine ourselves and our own set of values, moral and…
My Operatic Highlights 2017
DIRECTORS Ivo van Hove: Salome, Amsterdam David Radok: Arsilda, Bratislava DESIGNERS Christophe Ouvrard: Der Freischütz, Münster Falko Herold: Die Frau ohn Schatten, Linz CONDUCTORS Markus Poschner: Die Frau ohn Schatten, Linz Lawrence Cummings, Lucio Silla, Buxton SINGERS…
Massenet’s Cendrillon at the RNCM
Because it is a comic, light piece, Cendrillon may not contain Massenet’s greatest music, but it has considerable charm, wit and warm lyricism; and it is surprising that it is does not have a regular place in the standard repertory….
Donizetti’s Il Burgomastro di Saardam in Bergamo
The Fondazione Donizetti rightly considers it an important part of the function of its annual festival to unearth the composer’s rarities. But since he wrote over 70 operas, the chances are that some of these are not worth reviving and…
Donizetti/Mayr Double Bill in Bergamo
The annual festival in Bergamo organised by the Fondazione Donizetti has an interesting programme combining opera and concerts with other events. It focuses on unearthing unfamiliar works by the composer who was born in the town and those of his…
Die Frau ohne Schatten in Linz
In all but the major international opera houses, there must be some hesitancy before mounting performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten. The work by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal is long, complex and requires top class singers. Above all,…
Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at Salzburg
Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex is a short work and it was a good idea of the Salzburg Landestheater to perform it alongside Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and a ballet based on Medea in an evening of Greek drama, the different theatrical perspectives…
Lucio Silla in Brussels
When you have enjoyed an excellent performance of a work and circumstances enable you to see it again soon after in a different production, there is a risk that your second encounter will be disappointing. This summer I had been…
Schoeck’s Penthesilea in Bonn
Othmar Schoeck is not a familiar name. The Swiss composer is perhaps best known today for his lieder but he also wrote several operas. His career spanning the two world wars never projected him into the international limelight, perhaps because…
Arabella in Dortmund
On the face of it Arabella is conventional operatic stuff. Drawing on the success of Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss combines a luscious, lyrical score with another exploration of love, in this case one which triumphs over parental manipulation and frivolity, both…
Jenůfa in Stockholm
Jenůfa is, musically and dramatically, such a powerful work that it almost never fails to make a huge impact. Yet during the first act of the performance at Stockholm’s Royal Opera, I sensed that the audience was not fully engaged….
Manon Lescaut in Stockholm
Musically, the quality of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut should not be underestimated. George Bernard Shaw, on hearing its first British performance, considered that it heralded a new development in Italian opera, moving it to something more symphonic and underpinning the dramatic…
Arne’s Alfred at the Leeds Left Bank Opera Festival
Thomas Arne’s Alfred is described by the Northern Opera Group, which is currently performing it at the Leeds Left Bank Opera Festival, as “one of the greatest and most thrilling British operas of all-time”. Well, even allowing for the hype…
Un Ballo in Maschera at the West Green House Opera
The tone for the West Green House Opera is set by the admonition on its website that “the consistent dress code for all evening performances is Black Tie.” Back to the notion of opera for the elite? Or instead a…
Salieri’s Scuola de’ gelosi at Bampton
After years of neglect, some of Antonio Salieri’s forty or so operas are beginning to find their way onto the modern stage. Fascination with the composer’s historical character, sparked off by Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, may be largely responsible for this,…
Lucio Silla at the Buxton Festival
Seeing Mozart’s Lucio Silla at Buxton within a week of La Finta Giardiniera at the Ryedale Festival (see my blog of 16th July) confirmed what an extraordinary musical-dramatist the composer was as a teenager. It is not merely the brilliance…
Mozart’s Finta Giardiniera at the Ryedale Festival
Hardly necessary to say, but Mozart’s Finta Giardiniera is a remarkable work. Written at the age of eighteen, it looks forward to Nozze di Figaro not just in the facility of tuneful writing and its boisterous ensembles but, more importantly,…