Verdi
stephen.walsh
David Pountney’s tenure at WNO has been an almost unqualified success, despite some eccentricities of repertoire and a certain obstinacy in the matter of new commissions. His own productions have included at least three of unforgettable quality. He has vigorously promoted money-saving co-productions like this one with Theater Bonn. But there is not much, for my money, that even he can do with La forza del destino, Verdi’s ramshackle response to an early 1860s commission from the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg.Did Verdi have in mind some vague idea of what would go down well in barbaric Read more ...
Richard Farnes
Commentators have, over the years, variously described Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) as all things to all people: Verdi’s Tristan und Isolde, Verdi’s masterpiece, Verdi’s Don Giovanni, a pure love poem, and much more. It seems to me to be one of his most consistently exciting works, perfectly proportioned and dramatically astute.Interestingly, in this instance Verdi did not feel the need to make the extensive revisions that he undertook to the operas either side of it in his canon – Simon Boccanegra, La forza del destino and Don Carlos. Its creation was relatively swift, and its Read more ...
David Nice
Remastered they may be, but the 20 live operas recorded here between 1949 and 1964 vary soundwise from clean at best to atrocious, with all the caprices of stage noise and audience participation seemingly acceptable at the time (so often there's the shouting prompter who seems duty bound to cue everything – even interjecting a loud libiamo! in the silence before the voices kick in for La traviata's Brindisi). But you don't have to be a diehard Callas fanatic to realise the value of this extraordinary treasury. On stage she always gave that little bit extra, complete with sobs in the Read more ...
David Nice
Even seemingly immortal singers grow old. Sir Bryn is closer to the "Martinmas summer" of Shakespeare's and Verdi's Sir John than when first he put on the fat suit at the Royal Opera 18 years ago. Even if he walks the gouty walk that matches the belly, vocally he seems richer than ever. Maybe not quite the definitive operatic Falstaff of our era - that honour falls to Ambrogio Maestri - but a suitable planet for the variable young moons of Liverpool's European Opera Centre to revolve around, at least two of them shining bright. With the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra very much present Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Now we know who sent Jonas Kaufmann the Union Jack boxer shorts for the Last Night of the Proms. Whether the sender’s identity is the bigger surprise, or the hint of ambiguity over whether the "Greatest Tenor in the World" had previously heard of one of Britain’s favourite baritones – well, you decide. And no, we don’t learn who threw the knickers at him from the arena.It’s all good clean fun in the Jonas Kaufmann show. The Last Night of the Proms 2015 was just one incident in an action-packed two years for the German opera star, whose popularity currently sweeps all before it. The Read more ...
David Nice
There's something here for everyone, as a "roll up!" slogan for one of the greatest shows in town might put it. Even opera buffs don't seem to have found much to fault with the cornucopia of sounds, moving pictures, objects, paintings, drawings and even a working stage set handsomely displayed in the spacious areas beneath the Victoria & Albert's gleaming new Exhibition Road entrance.Discrimination proves key. "Operas and cities" is the brief, which could have sprawled or resulted in some inapposite choices, but what we have is impeccable. In the first two "theatres", it looks as if there Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
If the best is the enemy of the good, then the excellent is also the enemy of the "meh". And if you can stomach Verdi's Aida, go and see English National Opera’s new production for its central performance by Latonia Moore. In what’s become her signature role – the American soprano has sung Aida a hundred times previously – her searingly expressive, silvery tone and complete inhabiting of the character brought the doomed Ethiopian princess in Egyptian enslavement leaping to life. Unfortunately she was the pearl in an oyster that otherwise proved rather resistant to winkling – showing up how Read more ...
Michael Volpe
On the morning of the Grenfell Tower disaster, as the news of the fire gathered pace and gravity, our phones were abuzz with concern for our front of house colleague, Debbie Lamprell, who we knew lived in the tower. We all called her number time and again, sought to reassure one another with optimistic scenarios whereby her telephone may have been left at home as she escaped. My telephone rang again. This time it was James Clutton, our Director of Opera, calling from the base of the tower itself; he’d rushed across London, frustrated at the lack of news of our colleague, and was searching Read more ...
David Nice
Unless you're an undiscriminating fan of bel canto, the lesser Italian and French operas of the 1830s and '40s - that's to say, not Verdi's Nabucco and Macbeth or Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini - need to be approached with caution. Once you've lowered expectations to a simpler level of compositional style, you then have to hope for stylists of the first order to make it work. That doesn't happen too often these days, but the inspirational company Opera Rara, responsible for this often spectacular programme of operatic excerpts, knows where to find them. In soprano Joyce El-Khoury, tenor Michael Read more ...
Richard Bratby
“The subject is neither political nor religious; it is fantastical” wrote Verdi to the librettist Piave about his opera Macbeth. “The opera is not about the rise of a modern fascist: nor is it about political tyranny. It is a study in character” adds director Elijah Moshinsky in the programme for this opening production of the 2017 Buxton International Festival. To which (at least if your last encounter with Macbeth was Welsh National Opera’s production last year, seemingly set in a Travelodge somewhere near Edinburgh Airport) it’s tempting to respond, for this relief much thanks.Moshinsky Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Recorded on disc, this cast would be extraordinary for much of the time — to look at, not so much. Royal Opera conductor Antonio Pappano lured Jonas Kaufmann to London for his first attempt on the Everest of tenor roles, and with so many recent uncertainties about his vocal condition, last night the German took his debut cautiously but beautifully — his astonishing good looks enhanced with a spritz of Mediterranean bronzing rather than the full-on Moorish blackening of yesteryear.The flattering look dilutes the dramatic effect, however. Less perfection needed. For you need to suspend Read more ...
David Nice
There are certain roles where you’re lucky to catch one perfect incarnation in a lifetime. I thought I'd never see a soprano as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and Peace equal to Yelena Prokina, Valery Gergiev’s choice for Graham Vick’s 1991 production. When Vick directed a radically different take, also at the Mariinsky, in 2014, the Natasha was 25-year-old Aida Garifullina, born in Kazan so like Nureyev and Chaliapin a Russian of Tatar origins. Not only was she as beautiful and as youthful in spirit as the interim incumbent, Anna Netrebko, but like Prokina she seemed to live the intense emotions Read more ...