Tabla de contenidos para September 2023 en Opera Now

Arts Council England (ACE) and the English National Opera (ENO) have together released a statement confirming that the ENO will receive a grant of £24 million to cover from April 2024 to March 2026. The ENO has also been given more time to establish a new main base outside the capital by March 2029. The ENO’s new home city will be revealed in December this year, with the move to be completed by March 2029, rather than by March 2026 as originally suggested. During the 2024-26 period, the ENO will transition to a new business model, delivering a ‘substantial opera season’ every year in London while developing a ‘significant performance and engagement programme’ in their new home city. The decision follows months of campaigning from the classical music sector in…

A decided chill was in the air for the second night of Garsington Opera’s new production of Il barbiere di Siviglia. Happily, the action on stage and in the pit warmed the cockles: the set (Simon Higlett) was toybox colourful; the stage direction (Christopher Luscombe) engagingly lively; and the playing of the English Concert under Douglas Boyd irresistibly sprightly. Maybe the infectious élan had something to do with Boyd’s memories of playing, as an oboist, for Claudio Abbado’s celebrated Chamber Orchestra of Europe recording of Il barbiere (with Battle, Domingo and Raimondi). We were transported to late 1920s Seville, depicted via the luscious art deco interior of the Don Bartolo residence, revealed by turns with a pop-up book street scene, complete with barber shop. Naturally. Nothing remotely jarred as a…

RICHARD STRAUSS Die Frau ohne Schatten To experience a production that fires on all the main fronts – casting, conductor and orchestra, staging and visuals – is reason enough for immense gratitude. But when the opera being produced is one as complex and demanding as Die Frau ohne Schatten, it seems nothing short of miraculous. San Francisco Opera already made history with this most extravagantly layered of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal collaborations by presenting the first American production in 1959 (four decades after its premiere in Vienna). But even apart from that milestone, FROSCH’s return to San Francisco is destined to rank among the peak achievements in the company’s collective memory. The production David Hockney originally designed for the Royal Opera House in 1992 was chosen for this revival. The artist’s intensely…

1 What was the first opera composed specifically for television? 2 Which character sings the opening lines of Verdi’s Il trovatore? 3 Who dictates a will bequeathing a valuable mule, a house in Florence and mills at Signa? 4 With reference to Question 3, to whom does he leave them? 5 And again with reference to Question 3, who sang that role at San Diego Opera earlier this year? 6 Which opera takes place in the village of Lykovrissi? 7 Be overly curious but don’t be sniffy about which operas by Shostakovich and Jonathan Dove? 8 What blooming well links the soprano roles in La traviata, Faust and Iris? 9 Who composed Romulus Hunt, a Family Opera? Nobody does it better! 10 What does Lady Harriet Durham call herself when…

Working as a répétiteur – aposition that demands excellence as both accompanist and coach – requires a complex blend of skills. What led you to the role? As a teenager at Chetham’s School of Music I enjoyed accompanying my friends. This enthusiasm continued when I studied music at the University of Manchester, where I met Martin Pickard, a répétiteur at Opera North. Martin introduced me to operatic repertoire and demonstrated the skills needed to be a répétiteur. I knew it was the job for me. What are the differences between accompanying song and opera? In opera, representing the sound of the orchestra is vital: répétiteurs prepare by listening to recordings, looking at the orchestral score and editing anything that is misrepresented in the piano reduction. It’s essential to understand the…

Finland’s ever-evolving operatic landscape has seen more scene shifts than a Rossini buffa over the last 111 years. But one of its major features looks exactly as it did in 1912: opera within the castle walls at Savonlinna. That summer, the trailblazing dramatic soprano Aino Ackté directed the first opera inside St Olaf ’s Castle at Savonlinna in eastern Finland. Five years earlier she had attended a nationalist rally at the fortress and noted its huge courtyard’s potential as a natural auditorium for lyric theatre. At a stretch, Savonlinna can be described as the Glyndebourne of the North. Each July, Finland’s operatic spotlight swings its beam 300km northeast from Helsinki, tracking the raft of operatic freelancers who have already made their way there. It’s known for its chorus, stuffed with…

UK | Live Reviews JANÁČEK The Makropulos Affair Welsh National Opera has a long association with Janáček. Charles Mackerras conducted the first Welsh performance of the master’s dark longevity opera in 1978. This new production for 2022, directed by Olivia Fuchs, used a re-edited score that was partly the work of WNO’s new Czech music director Tomáš Hanus. From the overture the music was urgent and dramatic. As Emilia Marty, the Spanish soprano Ángeles Blancas Gulin dominated the production from her entry. Variously coiffured from flaming redhead to bald cadaver, Blancas Gulin dominated the stage in a series of stunning dresses – sequentially black, red and white by WNO’s head of costume, Sian Price. The overall design by Nicola Turner also relied heavily on the dramatic impact of those three…

MOZART Così fan tutte For several decades now, audiences have attended performances of Mozart’s comedy not expecting it to be set in Naples, or in the composer’s period. Traditional in these two respects, Martin Lloyd-Evans’s staging was otherwise highly individual. Though Mozart and Da Ponte have been accused of misogyny, none of the characters came out of his production with their reputations intact. The show’s final gesture – Carolina Lippo’s feisty Despina kicking Christian Senn’s Alfonso in the balls – felt very much to the point. In Dick Bird’s set with many aspects, the initial argument that initiates the actionlaunching bet took place in the street outside a brothel from which Ferrando (the lyrically appealing Alessandro Fisher) and Guglielmo (the forthright Nicholas Lester) had just emerged. In their complex interactions,…

DUVAL Les Génies Of all genres, opera by female composers holds more than its fair share of secret and undiscovered gems. None more secretive, perhaps, than Les Génies by the extraordinary ‘Mademoiselle Duval’. We don’t even know Duval’s first name, nor her exact death date (as what happened after she married and became ex-Duval is shrouded in mystery). What we do know, at least from this performance of her opéra-ballet, Les Genies, ou Les Caractères de l’Amour (1736), is that she was a hugely talented composer. This was the second opera written by a woman in France with Jacquet de la Guerre’s Céphale et Procris being the first. Duval’s piece exists only in skeletal score with a libretto by Jacques Fleury. The realisation heard at Versailles’ Grand Salles des Croisades…

★★★★★ Theodora is an oratorio which is often staged, and here it triumphs in Katie Mitchell’s production from Covent Garden last year. Mitchell is a divisive director who can be horribly wayward, as in her reading of Lucia di Lammermoor which she posited as a radical feminist reworking (surely the very essence of Lucia is clearly about patriarchal bullying and misogyny). Mitchell updates Theodora to a contemporary setting with the Christians as kitchen staff in Valens’s Roman embassy, but secretly they are a pocket of revolutionary resistance, each person prepared to kill or die for their beliefs. Mitchell’s trademark directorial tropes appear but are used to stunning effect. The use of slow motion both suspends time during arias and also allows for some incredibly detailed acting: she does change a…

What is the Royal Opera of the Château de Versailles? It is an extraordinary venue that was built more than 250 years ago and has remained almost intact since it was created! Louis XV built it as a stage for royal wedding ceremonies. It was inaugurated in 1770 for the wedding of the future Louis XVI and Marie-Antoine te. At the time, the theatre was the biggest concert hall in Europe, entirely constructed by wood! From the French Revolution onwards, it was used for several purposes, including as the Senate, before Louis-Philippe turned it into a museum. Over the past decade, the stage is again in use as an opera house and Château de Versailles Spectacles has hosted more than 10 seasons there with over 100 opera, concert, ballet or…

Glyndebourne and Pegasus Opera Company have announced the names of four singers who are taking part in a mentoring programme on which the opera companies partner. Launched to address the underrepresentation of classical singers from diverse backgrounds on opera stages, the partnership between Glyndebourne and Pegasus Opera is now in its second year. The programme offers aspiring and emerging artists of African and Asian heritage coaching and mentoring opportunities The four singers selected to take part are sopranos Jasmine Flicker and Moloko Letsoalo, Baritone Carlos Felipe Cerchiaro and bass Masimba Ushe. The participants will have opportunities to observe rehearsals and shadow established artists at the 2023 Glyndebourne Festival. They will also receive opportunities to perform for Glyndebourne artistic staff and to get feedback aiding their development. Representatives from Glyndebourne will…

For anyone who hasn’t visited Glasgow recently, they might be surprised at how much this former second city of the Empire has changed. Scottish Opera’s general director Alex Reedijk points out that the company’s Glasgow venue, the Theatre Royal, is one of a cluster of culturally-related buildings located within less than a mile of each other. ‘Glasgow challenges preconceived ideas of a postindustrial landscape. It’s a vital and culturally rich city with a set of venues which are important to our artistic ecology. We have the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Piping Centre as neighbours and within spitting distance the Royal Concert Hall, City Halls, the Glasgow Film Theatre, the King’s and Pavilion Theatres, the Glasgow School of Art and the Centre for Contemporary Art.’ Glasgow might be…

When you visit the Museum of the Mind at the Bethlem Hospital in South London, two statues greet you as you ascend the staircase – ‘Raving Madness’ and ‘Melancholy Madness’. They were created for the top of the entrance gate posts at the hospital and displayed to all who entered from 1676 to 1815. It’s a snapshot into the history of mental illness and the trauma that still lives within the mental health system, previously viewing patients as exhibits, less than human. Journalism has played a key role in exposing the mistreatment within such institutions, and one of the first major instances of this was the work of Pennsylvanian-born Nellie Bly in 1887. The 23-yearold journalist feigned insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum…

To arrive in Boise from the East, you fly over the Sawtooth mountains, and from the west, the Boise mountains, giving you a feel for the city’s isolation. Located 3,000 feet above sea level, in the high desert of south-western Idaho, Boise is the most isolated city of its size in the USA. It is a city of contrasts where you will find vestiges of its Wild West origins and agricultural economy with antique farming tractors encased in glass display cases scattered around the city alongside an abundance of striking modern sculpture. There are gourmet restaurants, outdoor cafés, art and history museums, and more than 25 miles of walking and cycle paths running alongside the banks of the Boise River where there are several opportunities to stop and sample Idaho…

MOZART Le Nozze di Figaro Flemish Opera, Antwerp You mess with Figaro at your peril. No, I don’t mean it’s ‘perfect’ as it is: all those letters, those shenanigans in the darkened garden – Beaumarchais left a bunch of insoluble dramatic problems for Lorenzo da Ponte, which doesn’t stop directors trying to solve them. The latest is Tom Goossens, a young man whose first main-stage production this was. And it’s a good, positive, cheering effort (for the most part), and one which made its audience extremely happy – so the carping required of critics feels pretty churlish. The big idea was connection between stage and audience: no fourth wall at all to speak of, and the artifices of theatre made playfully transparent and collusive. No scenery but a big, empty,…