Italy
Orfeo, Royal Opera, RoundhouseWednesday, 14 January 2015
It’s quite a distance from the first performance of Monteverdi’s operatic cornucopia under the Mantuan Gonzagas’ imperious eye to this democratic celebration at the Roundhouse – 408 years, to be precise. Michael Boyd’s production takes us back even... Read more... |
Un Ballo in Maschera, Royal OperaFriday, 19 December 2014
Covent Garden’s masked balls circling around the New Year feature not the seasonal bourgeois Viennese couple and a bat-winged conspirator but a king, his best friend’s wife and – excessively so in this production – the grim reaper. Big voices are... Read more... |
DVD: Human CapitalTuesday, 11 November 2014
Italy’s nominee for next year’s Foreign Language Oscar is an ambitious satire on the ruinous machinations of the super-rich, symbolised by the overworked waiter clipped by a speeding SUV in the opening minutes. Three perspectives on the events... Read more... |
Cristina, Regina di Svezia, Chelsea Opera Group, Cadogan HallSunday, 09 November 2014
One queen is much like another in so-called “historical” Italian early to mid 19th-century opera. Elizabeth of England, Christina of Sweden, take your pick, they all fall for a tenor courtier who loves Another (the seconda donna, soprano or mezzo).... Read more... |
DVD: I ClownsSaturday, 18 October 2014
Circuses were a regular touchstone for Fellini, and clowns, as this 1970 TV movie confirms, their troubling core. I Clowns’ first 25 minutes are a dry run for Amarcord’s raucous flashback to Fascist Rimini. Beginning with the boy Fellini woken in... Read more... |
theartsdesk in La Foce: War and Peace in Val d'OrciaSunday, 10 August 2014
“If this isn’t nice, what is?” Kurt Vonnegut’s vow to repeat his Uncle Alex’s mantra when things were going “sweetly and peacefully” has been much on my mind during various idylls this war-torn summer. It certainly applied to hearing three boys and... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Saleem and Violinist Nabeel Abboud AshkarSunday, 03 August 2014
Saleem (born 1976), having dropped the "Abboud" from his name, is one of the world’s most individual top pianists: his recent disc of Mendelssohn concertos with Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester is bound to make my “best of year”... Read more... |
La traviata, GlyndebourneFriday, 18 July 2014
Some of us have witnessed Traviatas where single stars were born: Angela Gheorghiu for Solti at the Royal Opera nearly 20 years ago springs quickest to mind. Some would claim a dream couple in Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon on peak form at... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Tenor Michael FabianoWednesday, 16 July 2014
You can usually trust the buzz around rehearsals. From Glyndebourne, five weeks into preparation for La traviata, which opens tomorrow, one of the team working on Tom Cairns’ new production declared in an e-mail conversation that newcomer soprano... Read more... |
Lorin Maazel (1930-2014) on Puccini's Golden GirlMonday, 14 July 2014
I met one of the 20th century’s most impressive, if not always sympathetic, conductors twice, on both occasions to talk Puccini before La Scala recordings of La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) and Manon Lescaut.Maazel was then still... Read more... |
Manon Lescaut, Royal OperaWednesday, 18 June 2014
Puccini’s racy first masterpiece, like its successor La bohème, should feel like an opera of two halves – the first full of youthful exuberance, the second darker and ultimately tragic. The contrast here, alas, was between vivacious performers and a... Read more... |
Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne Festival OperaMonday, 09 June 2014
Sex farce, class comedy, crime thriller, existential tragedy, supernatural shocker - Don Giovanni is, as Jonathan Kent notes about his production in the Glyndebourne programme, a cabinet of curiosities. Mozart's music hurdles to and fro across two... Read more... |
