Handel’s Sosarme at Halle
The curtain rose on the performance of Handel’s Sosarme at Halle. The setting was sordid: a backyard behind a decaying building containing trash and other clutter. On the stage came a group of yobs, yelling and hustling. I inwardly groaned….
Les Huguenots at the Deutsche Oper
What today is the appeal of the old warhorse Les Huguenots, an example of the now largely neglected species, French grand opera, and one which was adored by our Victorian forefathers? There is the subject-matter: drawing on momentous events…
The Kosky/Andrade Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper
This was the 100th performance at the Berlin Komsiche Oper of the famous Kosky-Andrade production of Zauberflöte; it has also travelled to other countries. One can understand why it has been so successful. Mozart’s singspiel would seem to be ideal…
Italiana in Algeri in Weimar
You are in Weimar for a performance of Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. What would be your reaction if the stage director and conductor, commenting in the programme on their approach to the piece, both describe it as needing strong interpretation?…
Zarzuela in Nordhausen
How much do we know of Spanish zarzuelas in Britain? Almost nothing, and the same is true in Germany. Full marks, then, to the small Nordhausen company for staging Federico Morena Torroba’s Luisa Fernanda, one of the most celebrated examples…
Donizetti’s Maria di Rudenz at Wexford
The Wexford Festival has a fine record for reviving forgotten or neglected Donizetti but the recent performances of Maria de Rudenz will not feature among its successes. The work itself is neither better nor worse than many of its ilk…
Barber’s Vanessa at Wexford
What makes Samuel Barber’s Vanessa such an engaging work? Not just the music which, though to some extent typical of the composer’s melodic, lush romantic style, is also hard-edged. Rather it is the strength of the libretto written by Gian…
Herculanum by Félicien David at Wexford
The Wexford Festival is certainly a venue for curiosities and there can hardly have been an opera for which that expression is more apt than Herculanum composed in the mid-19th century by Félicien David, a name unknown to all but…
Monteverdi’s Ulysses by the ETO
A reviewer of the English Touring Opera’s Ritorno d’Ulisse concluded that it was the best production of the work s(he) had seen. Not far wrong. With its direct, unexaggerated narrative style, and deft movement, James Conway caught the right balance…
Semiramide in Florence
The recent performances of Semiramide at the Florence Opera were dedicated to the memory of Luca Ronconi whose production of the work at Naples was revived here; he died in 2015. It is difficult to imagine a more fitting tribute…
Don Carlo in Parma
Don Carlo, perhaps my favourite Verdi opera, would seem to be an ideal choice for a first visit to the famed Teatro Regio in Parma, his home town. The work needs and, as the event to open the Verdi Festival…
The Aix Cosi at Edinburgh
What was all the fuss about? As a consequence of press reports on Christophe Honoré’s production of Cosi Fan Tutte at Aix, the Edinburgh Festival administration decided to offer refunds to all those wishing to return their tickets. Anyone who…
Beethoven’s Leonore at Buxton
The Buxton staging of Beethoven’s Leonore was my first encounter with the work; how should it be compared with Fidelio? Director Stephen Medcalf in his programme note suggests that it is more discursive but also more dramatic, the additional scenes…
Handel’s Tamerlano at the Buxton Festival
From every perspective, Handel’s Tamerlano at the Buxton Festival is a first-rate affair. Musically it benefits from the presence of Laurence Cummings and The English Concert, highly regarded specialists in this repertory. They forced attention on the orchestral accompaniments not…
I Capuleti e I Montecchi at Buxton
Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi is no masterpiece. Drawing on Matteo Bandello’s account of the Romeo and Juliet legend, rather than Shakespeare, its creaking plot is typical of early 19th century Italian opera, combining tensions between love and loyalty…
The Bartered Bride in Aachen
The Bartered Bride given in a German translation in Aachen may seem an odd choice for a British opera excursionist but, after Bieito’s awful Mahagonny in Antwerp (see my blog of 1st July), it came as a blessed relief. Responsible…
The Brecht/Weill Mahagonny in Antwerp
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the Brecht/Weill fable of a society created purely for wealth and the commodification of people and love, would appear to be an ideal work for the talents of Catalan director Calixto…
Tannhäuser at Longborough
I had heard such good things about Wagner at Longborough that I went to Tannhäuser for my first visit there with high expectations. I have to admit that I was to be somewhat disappointed. Not with the theatre and its…
A Bernstein-Carter double bill at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
As part of its “Young Directors” programme, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein is offering an imaginative double bill of contemporary American works: Elliott Carter’s What Next? and Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. The first of these, Carter’s only opera, written…
Zimmermann’s Soldaten in Wiesbaden
Die Soldaten by Bernd Alois Zimmermann is a key work in the history of contemporary opera and one of the most significant of the post-World War II period, perhaps the equivalent to Wozzeck of the interwar years. If it is…