Tabla de contenidos para September 2022 en Opera Now

Opéra National de Paris At the Opéra National de Paris, the newly appointed music director Gustavo Dudamel conducts Tosca (3-18 Sep) with Bryn Terfel and Gerald Finley as bad Baron Scarpia. Directed by Pierre Audi, with sets by Christof Hetzer, it runs until November 26 with Saioa Hernández and Elena Stikhina sharing the role of the singer who lives for Art and Love and Joseph Calleja (24 Sep - 26 Nov) and Brian Jagde (20 Oct - 8 Nov) that of her lover, Cavaradossi. Two Robert Carsen revivals occupy October and November. There is his Magic Flute (17 Sep - 19 Nov) and for lovers of bel canto there’s Bellini’s I Capuleti e iMontecchi, the beauty of whose music more than makes up for its preposterous plot (21 Sep -…

A strong line-up all round in Gypsy: Monique Young (Louise), Aiesha Pease (Electra), Rebecca Lisewski (Mazeppa) and Tiffany Graves (Tessie Tura) Following last year’s A Little Night Music, Buxton once again opened its 2022 season with a musical. Having genre specialist Paul Kerryson on hand (he’s now heading the festival’s main venue, the Buxton Opera House itself) is just too good a local opportunity to miss. Jule Styne’s musical Gypsy (which the inclusivity edit function of my laptop software suggests I rename ‘Romani Person’, incidentally) is one of the classic pieces of its period, as well it might be with a lineup of creatives that include book, Arthur Laurents; lyrics, Stephen Sondheim; music, Jule Styne. Attractively designed by Phil R Daniels (set), Charles Cusick Smith (costume), and Jake Wiltshire (lighting),…

Two standard rep pieces at this year’s Leicestershire festival, the first offering a new take on Puccini’s classic. In a programme note to Puccini’s La bohème, director Mathilda du Tillieul McNicol and her assistant Evangeline Cullingworth posit the notion that Mimì ‘could have been a proficient and talented poet, writer or philosopher, confidently leading a life full of potential and proven success’. Faced with the knowledge of her illness, they go on, ‘what if she makes the choice to enter Bohemia for the last four acts of her life?’ Speculative this reading must inevitably remain, however – because there’s no evidence in the opera’s text to support it. With her striking vocal quality and personality, Francesca Chiejina’s Mimì was thus placed at the centre of the action. She opened the…

This is a co-production between the Opéra-Comique and Château de Versailles Spéctacles; a DVD/Blu-ray of a performance of Mondonville’s 1753 Titon et l’Aurore conducted by William Christie in January 2021, filmed during lockdown without an audience, has already been released by Naxos. But to see Basil Twist’s impossibly beautiful production first-hand in Versailles was magical. The music of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (1711-72) remains underappreciated to this day, although Christie has made valiant attempts to correct this, including a significant disc of Grands Motets. A violinist and composer, Mondonville enjoyed success in his lifetime; he was much associated with the Chapelle Royale. The ‘opéra-ballet’ Titon et l’Aurore exemplifies all that is great in French Art. The piece is perfectly proportioned, with each air or chorus impeccably judged within the work’s…

Perhaps appropriately for a proud Welshman, Sir Bryn Terfel is more interested in talking about the harp than about his singing when we meet on zoom. The instrument has been playing a major role in his life ever since he met Hannah Stone, the former Royal Harpist to the Prince of Wales. He and Hannah were married in July 2019, and the newly-weds found themselves with plenty of time to make music together during lockdown. As Terfel prepares for his first major UKwide concert tour this autumn, he will be bringing his wife with him to play in five out of the nine nationwide concerts, alternating between orchestra and harp and piano. ‘It’s the national instrument of Wales,’ Terfel points out, ‘and both Hannah and I are true Welsh people,…

Marina Viotti’s story is fascinating. The mezzo-soprano has an affinity with musical styles that range from symphonic metal and jazz to opera. Though her journey to the operatic stage is far from traditional, she is from a family of classical musicians: her father, Marcello Viotti was an acclaimed conductor who specialised in opera, and her mother Marie Laurence is a former violinist. Born in Switzerland, she was raised in northern France, surrounded by opera: ‘If you watch the videos when we were kids,’ she says, ‘there is opera all along. We were staging stuff’). The urge to be a singer emerged at the tender age of eight. ‘My parents never told us to do music, but all four children wanted to. I wanted to sing, but my parents said, “It’s…

When Offenbach died in Paris in 1880, he was clutching the score of his incomplete opera, Les contes d’Hoffmann – anice touch for the history books. Alas, he left us with a conundrum: quite how to finish it off. First to have a go was Ernest Guiraud, who completed orchestration and wrote recitatives just four months later for the Opéra-Comique, but it was a botched job, muddled by the theatre’s interfering director, Léon Carvalho. After this it was open season on the opera, with publishing house Choudens providing a 1907 version that was widely used for decades; this included adding the Septet and an aria for Dapertutto, ‘Scintille, diamant’ to the Venice act. In the 1970s more music came to light and a version was created by Fritz Oeser, itself…

Les Talens Lyriques are having a busy year in the lead up to their 30th anniversary in 2022/23. I was lucky enough to attend two highlights earlier in the summer both showing the style, range and versatility of this extraordinary and unique ensemble. Given in a concert performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, La Vestale (The Vestal Virgin) by Gaspare Spontini is a Tragédie Lyrique that takes a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy (after Winckelmann) to spectacular heights. It was first performed in 1807 in the presence of the Empress Joséphine (Napoleon himself was at war). Although the work is largely out of favour now, one has to remember that Maria Callas made the title role of Julia her own (her live 1954 performance with Franco Corelli…

1. In Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), which commedia dell’arte role does Nedda take in the play? 2. What is Tosca’s first name? 3. Who is lobbed into the Thames from a laundry basket? 4. I am off to see Обручение в монастыре – what is it in English? 5. Which operatic dame played which operatic dame in Downton Abbey? She displays a taste for Haut-Brion. 6. What is used in a choir of 12 to open the Prelude of Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti? 7. Who dies in a sewer? She’s not looking at the stars but sings a delirious aria to the sun. 8. What is the relationship between Manrico and the Conte di Luna in Il trovatore (Verdi)? 9. Multiply the number of Glass’ airplanes on the roof by the number…

Britten for Britain Your Verdi issue in August gave some wonderful insights on the figure who became so synonymous with Italian national identity. Verdi was rejected by the people of his hometown in Busseto in his own day. They regarded his (unmarried) relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi as sinful. All that has changed today: statues of the composer abound and he is regarded as a local hero. All this contrasts with Aldeburgh, where I live and where a sizable part of the population seem intent on undermining the memory of Benjamin Britten, one of the greatest creative figures that this country has produced. Maggi Hambling’s sculpture on Aldeburgh Beach commemorating Britten is constantly vandalised and his association with the town is frequently scorned by locals (are they homophobic?). Verdi’s operas are…

When the Royal Opera in Versailles was inaugurated in 1770 during the reign of Louis XV, it was the largest concert hall in Europe. The construction of the theatre represented a great technical achievement as well as being an impressive feat of decorative refinement. Throughout its illustrious history, this is a building that has accommodated the needs of royals and republicans, hosting celebrations, performances and even parliamentary debates. Today, events at the Royal Opera and in the Royal Chapel are produced by a private company called the Château de Versailles Spectacles. There has been a cornucopia of delights on offer so far this year, from a wonderfully funny production of Rameau’s opera Platée to rare Locke (Cupid & Death) and the rediscovery of the operatic oeuvre of Jean-Joseph de Mondonville…

Good luck trying to anticipate which path John Adams is going to follow next. Despite the eminent status he has achieved as an elder statesman of contemporary music, his unrelenting drive to take new risks makes him among the least predictable of composers at work today. News that he had chosen Antony and Cleopatra as the subject for his next opera caught many by surprise. The world premiere in September, prominently scheduled to open San Francisco Opera’s centenary season, promises still more surprises for anyone who has followed Adams’ development as an artist. Over a lunch interview in midsummer, he explained that he deems Antony and Cleopatra to be ‘a very different piece of music theatre’ in comparison with his previous works. ‘There are hardly any big stand-alone arias, very…

Musical quality is taken as read at Garsington Opera, but the reflections most swiftly coming to mind looking back on the company’s 2022 season concern the intriguing range of sets on show. How far can a designer take risks before it becomes adventure for adventure’s sake? And can you change your mind about a set on witnessing a revival? A case in point is the welcome return of director Luisa Miller’s Turn of the Screw which won plaudits when it was premiered in Garsington in 2019. Across the board this was simply the finest line-up in pure vocal terms of the 2022 season. Verity Wingate stole the show with a superb Governess, with Robert Murray (Prologue/Quint), Susan Bickley (Mrs Grose) and Helena Dix (Miss Jessel) all similarly hard to fault,…

When Polly Graham took over at Longborough from her parents just before lockdown, she resolved to spend more money on the non-Wagnerian repertoire. After a very well-sung Siegfried with lots of back projection (reviewed in the August 2022 issue of Opera Now), the small LFO stage was made over to Korngold’s Die tote Stadt (The Dead City). It was a brave choice, given that the opera has never quite made it into the operatic canon, despite having all the musical mastery (pre-Turandot) of a Puccini. (The Tuscan maestro actually befriended the young Austrian Korngold after World War I.) Korngold was in his very early twenties when he wrote the work, adapting the libretto with his father. The young composer was a fast learner music-wise but at the premiere of Tote…

The Tokyo Nikikai Opera’s Parsifal directed by Amon Miyamoto and conducted by Sebastian Weigle finally saw the belated Japan premiere in July. Two different all-Japanese casts shared four performances at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan theater in Ueno, Tokyo. I saw the veteran tenor Kei Fukui in the title role, retaining a miraculously youthful voice and appearance. He conveyed brilliantly Parsifal’s innocence as well as his authority. The cast did remarkable jobs on the whole, particularly Hirotaka Kato as Gurnemanz, Hiroshi Kuroda as Amfortas and Naomi Tasaki as Kundry. Miyamoto had the bold idea of setting Wagner’s music-drama about the salvation of souls inside an art museum, where the story of a mother (a member of the museum staff) and her young son, both silent roles played by actors, unfolds alongside the…