Even some die-hard Wagnerian would rarely or ever care to listen to anything before Der Fliegende Holländer – and Rienzi’s grand-opéra style and Italian setting might be rather unsettling for those used to valkyries riding flying horses. That said, in spite of its gigantic length, the opera reserves many hidden treasures in its event eventful [...]
Archive for January, 2010
Davanti a lui tremava tutta… Berlino?
Posted in Reviews, tagged Deutsche Oper, Kate Aldrich, Torsten Kerl, Wagner's Rienzi on January 30, 2010 | 1 Comment »
No way Bach
Posted in Reviews on January 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Flirting with historically informed performances is something large orchestras could not resist. With various degrees of success, conductor like John Eliot Gardiner, Roger Norrington or Nikolaus Harnoncourt are regularly invited to guest performances with the Wiener Philharmoniker or the Concertgebouw. For many of them, this should not be seen as a surprise – Harnoncourt, for [...]
If life gives you lemon,…
Posted in Reviews on January 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
.., make lemonade. The infamous quote is one of Joan Collins’s contributions to mankind. Her acting skills were unfortunately not one of them, but the lady has attitude, one must concede her that. One can only guess how far she would have gone if she could do what Helen Mirren does… When it comes to [...]
Der erschreckende Blick
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Burkhard Fritz, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Schreker's Der ferne Klang, Staatsoper Unten der Linde on January 17, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Franz Schreker’s opera Der Ferne Klang, premièred in Frankfurt am Main in 1912, made the composer one of the brightest stars in German operatic world before and during WWI until he was blacklisted as creator of Entartete Musik, what probably concurred to his early death in 1934. Although the shadow of names such as Richard [...]
Light, but hard to digest
Posted in Reviews, tagged Birgit Remmert, Emily Magee, Franz Welser-Möst, Janice Baird, Michael Volle, Opernhaus Zürich, Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, Roberto Saccà on January 9, 2010 | 9 Comments »
Die Frau ohne Schatten is arguably Richard Strauss’s most formidable score, composed to Hugo von Hofmannstahl’s most complex libretto, the symbolism of which is almost awkward in its multiple levels. Magic opera, psychological drama, myth, social analysis… there is plenty to choose in it. To make things more difficult, the music is some sort of [...]
Just don’t
Posted in Reviews, tagged Anke Vondung, Christa Mayer, Cristoph Pohl, Cristopher Field, Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Max Emanuel Cencic, Semperoper on January 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes I feel that opera stage directors are the loneliest people in the world. They have to be orphan and friendless; otherwise someone would tell them “I know that this idea seems to work IN YOUR MIND, but the truth is…” And yet, no, they go all alone to their pitfalls – except for the [...]
