How local should be the staging of an opera? This is the question director Roland Schwab must have posed himself when the Deutsche Oper asked him for a new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. This is an opera named after one of the characters and although this generally means that this is the main character, [...]
Archive for October, 2010
Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 23.10.2010
Posted in Reviews, tagged Alex Exposito, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, Marina Rebeka, Martina Welschenbach, Mozart's Don Giovanni on October 23, 2010 | 17 Comments »
Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Staatsoper Hamburg, 21.10.2010
Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized, tagged Deborah Polaski, Hamburgische Staatsoper, John Tomlinson, Robert Bork, Wagner's Götterd on October 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Although Guy Cassiers’s Ring for La Scala/Deutsche Staatsoper is supposed to be a “ring of the ‘now’”, you would need a crystal ball to discover that, whereas Claus Guth’s Ring for the Hamburg Staatsoper definitely seems to address contemporary issues. I write “seems to”, for the new production of Götterdämmerung is the only one in [...]
Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Staatsoper in Schiller Theater, 17.10.2010
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Ekaterina Gubanova, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Kwangchul Youn, Staatsoper in Schller Theater, Stephan Rügamer, Wagner's Das Rheingold on October 17, 2010 | 9 Comments »
As the optimistic person that I am, I have decided to give the Cassiers/Barenboim Rheingold a second chance; maybe last time at La Scala was just a collective bad day and I was curious about the new pieces of casting. In an impossibly positive scenario, Cassiers could have rethought his concept after the unanimous dislike [...]
Missing and Wanted 2
Posted in Uncategorized on October 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I would be extremely grateful for any information concerning the whereabouts of any copy of Klemperer’s old, old, old recording of Così Fan Tutte with Margaret Price and Yvonne Minton [of course...].
The Met’s Rheingold on the screen
Posted in Articles, tagged Eric Owens, Wagner's Das Rheingold on October 9, 2010 | 5 Comments »
I have nothing new to add to the discussion about the Met’s new Ring, but in any case I would like to join the general opinion about it, based on what I could see on the movie theatre. Has the Met spent its millions wisely? I would say no – Robert Lepage’s machine cannot help [...]
R. Strauss’s Daphne, Semperoper Dresden, 08.10.2010
Posted in Reviews, tagged Camilla Nylund, Christa Mayer, Georg Zeppenfeld, Ladislav Elgr, R. Strauss's Daphne, Semperoper on October 8, 2010 | 4 Comments »
R. Strauss’s “bucolic tragedy” Daphne, written during the Second World War, has seldom been staged and, although some might blame the static libretto with its complex transformation scene at the end, I would rather mention the extremely difficult vocal parts and virtuosic writing for the orchestra. In any case, it is still a challenging story [...]
Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, Deutsche Oper, 02.10.2010
Posted in Reviews, tagged Angela Gheorghiu, Anna Smirnova, Burkhard Ulrich, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Jonas Kaufmann, Markus Brück on October 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Deutsche Oper’s concert performances of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur (probably together with the Staatsoper’s upcoming Walküre with Irène Théorin and René Pape) are seen as the operatic event of this season. Although Cilea is hardly a “superstar” composer, what he might miss in “coolness” has been provided by the casting of Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas [...]
