Alfred Dufresne News
French composer and playwright
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- composer, playwright
Last update
2024-04-24
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2024-04-06 11:15:00
Bizet's Carmen at Covent Garden: gritty realism & a reluctance to add any local colour & movement, redeemed by musical performances
[…] Opera House turned to director Damiano Michieletto (who has already had success with his 2015 production of Cav & Pag) with designs by Paolo Fantin (sets) and Carla Teti (costumes), lighting by Alessandro Carletti, and Elisa Zaninotto as dramaturg. Extensively double cast, including two conductors, we caught the opening night on 5 April 2024 with Antonello Manacorda conducting Aigul Akhmetshina as Carmen, Piotr Beczala as Don Jose, Olga Kulchynska as Micaela, Blaise Malaba as Zuniga, Sarah Dufresne as Frasquita, Gabriele Kupsyte as Mercedes, Kostas Smoriginas as Escamillo, Pierre Doyen as Dancairo and Vincent Ordonneau as Remendado. The matter of casting should be noted, the entire run of the new production (some 16 performances) has perilously few British singers at a time when the Royal Opera is the only major company giving performances in the capital. The production also tries to face both ways, the casting is resolutely international and we saw a […]
2023-07-09 11:39:00
Le nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera, 8 July 2023
Royal Opera HouseFigaro – Mattia Olivieri Susanna – Siobhan Stagg Bartolo – Maurizio Muraro Marcellina – Dorothea Röschmann Cherubino – Anna Stéphany Count Almaviva – Stéphane Degout Don Basilio – Krystian Adam Countess Almaviva – Hrachuhí Bassénz Antonio – Jeremy White Don Curzio – Peter Bronder Barbarina – Sarah Dufresne Two Bridesmaids – Helen Withers, Miranda WestcottDavid McVicar (director)Tanya McCallin (designs)Paule Constable (lighting)Leah Hausman (movement)Royal Opera Chorus (chorus director: William Spaulding)Orchestra of the Royal Opera HouseJoana Mallwitz (conductor)Images: Clive BardaCherubino (Anna Stéphany), Figaro (Mattia Olivieri), Susanna (Siobhan Stagg) ‘Figaro is the opera that a critic sees most often, and it is right that it should be.’ An opera critic I greatly admire wrote those words concerning a relatively early outing for this production in 2008. Michael Tanner proceeded to commend Charles Mackerras’s conducting of that revival of David McVicar’s staging, first seen in the Mozart Year of 2006, comparing it favourably […]
Royal Opera House (The Guardian)
2022-12-19 10:27:27
Royal Opera House, LondonThere are strong performances, particularly from Gyula Orendt’s Papageno and Sarah Dufresne’s Papagena, but the fun is damped down in David McVicar’s 2003 staging that imposes coherence on the pantomimic plot
2022-11-23 18:51:51
Legendary Eros Ramazzotti was back in Canada with his Battito Infinito World Tour at the Bell Centre in Montreal on November 16th and at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on November 18th. We gave away free tickets to a few lucky winners. Congrats to the winners: Denise Dufresne Carine Harman Barbara Cwioro Olivier Dellaire Isabelle meduri [...]
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