Opera Reviews
Lulu, Welsh National OperaSaturday, 09 February 2013
What-ifs and might-have-beens are usually as pointless in music as in any other walk of life. Still one can’t help wondering how Alban Berg would have completed – and, no less interesting, revised – his opera Lulu, if he hadn’t been stung by some philistine insect in the summer of 1935 and died of the resulting septicaemia that Christmas Eve, with the last act unfinished and barely half-orchestrated. Read more... |
Joyce DiDonato, Il Complesso Barocco, Barbican HallThursday, 07 February 2013
It may look like a sure-fire hit to let Kansas mezzo Joyce DiDonato rip through the drama-queen repertoire of the Baroque. But last night’s exploration of the dustiest, most overgrown byways of 17th and 18th century Italian opera needed every drop of DiDonato’s star musical talents – not to mention those of her backing band Il Complesso Barocco – to convince us of the worth of these rarities. The audience bought it. I remain on the fence. Read more... |
Eugene Onegin, Royal OperaTuesday, 05 February 2013
Studying Russian for three years to read Pushkin’s verse-novel Eugene Onegin in the original doesn’t guarantee the finest interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s equally great lyric homage. Yet it certainly seems to have focused the imagination of Covent Garden’s new Director of Opera, Kasper Holten, and allows him to inflect every move his characters make with the right emotion. Read more... |
La Traviata, English National OperaSunday, 03 February 2013
How’s a good time girl to bare her beautiful soul when a director seems bent on cutting her down to puppet size? It doesn't bother me that Peter Konwitschny shears Verdi’s already concise score by about 20 minutes to shoehorn it into a one-act drama; what goes is either inessential or among the usual casualties of standard Traviatas. The spare and economical idea of layered curtains to symbolise the characters' constriction or emancipation is good in principle, too. Read more... |
Mattila, Hampson, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 20 January 2013
This may have been the official, lavish fanfare for the Southbank’s The Rest is Noise Festival, which if the hard sell hasn’t hit you yet is a year-long celebration of 20th Century music in its cultural context and based around Alex Ross's bestseller of the same name. For Jurowski and the LPO, though, it was very much through-composed programme planning as usual, though with a sweeping bow towards the festival theme of how modernism evolved as it did. Read more... |
The Minotaur, Royal OperaFriday, 18 January 2013
Flesh-tearing, woman-raping, body-goring brute he may be, but he's misunderstood, that Minotaur. It's a bold argument to make, but this is the contention of Harrison Birtwistle and David Harsent's 2008 opera. They are aided by a surprisingly cuddly performance from John Tomlinson. Read more... |
Otello, Opera NorthThursday, 17 January 2013
The overpowering nastiness of Shakespeare’s source material is offset by Verdi’s sublime, impeccably judged music; this is a wonderful opera with barely a dud moment. Trust the score, get decent singers and an understanding, intelligent conductor, and everything should be fine. Read more... |
La Bohème, Royal OperaTuesday, 18 December 2012
Rolando Villazón at 40 is back on reasonably stylish form, as far as the voice will allow him to go – which is not always up and volume-wise only just as far as the Covent Garden Balcony. John Copley’s Royal Opera Bohème is two years younger than the Mexican tenor. Read more... |
Der Fliegende Holländer, Zurich Opera, Royal Festival HallSunday, 16 December 2012
Much more regularly than the seven years it takes the Flying Dutchman's demon ship to reach dry land, the Zurich Opera steamer moors at the Southbank Centre. None of its more recent concert performances up to now has branded itself on the memory as much as its 2003 visit, when chorus and soloists stunned in Wagner's Tannhäuser. Read more... |
Robert le Diable, Royal OperaFriday, 07 December 2012
My phone's predictive text posed an interesting question. Robert le Doable it insisted on calling last night's opera. And it's often been asked of this and other grands opéras. Are they doable? Such was the munificence of the times in which they thrived, and such has been the collapse in their popularity, are grands opéras worthy of resurrection? And do we have the resources and good will to do justice to their singular vision? Read more... |
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