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2024-03-23
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2024-02-04 11:53:00
The Golden Cockerel, Komische Oper, 3 February 2024
SchillertheaterKing Dodon – Alexander Roslavets Prince Guidon – Pavel Valuzhin Prince Aphron – Hubert Zapiór General Polkan – Alexander Vassiliev Amelfa – Margarita Nekrasova Golden Cockerel – Julia Muzychenko, Daniel Daniela Ojeda Yrureta Queen of Shemakha – Kseniia Proshina Astrologer – James Kryshak First Boyar – Taiki Miyashita Second Boyar – Jan-Frank Süße Dancers – Michael Fernandez, Lorenzo Soragni, Silvano Marraffa, Kai Chun ChungDirector – Barrie KoskyAssistant director – Denni SayersSet design – Rufus DidwiszusCostumes – Victoria BehrChoreography – Otto PichlerDramaturgy – Olaf A. Schmitt, Meike LieserLighting – Franck Evin Orchestra and Chorus of the Komische Oper (chorus director: David Cavelius)James Gaffigan (conductor)Images: Monika Rittershaus Two productions, very different, of Rimsky-Korsakov’s last opera, The Golden Cockerel, within two years: James Conway for English Touring Opera, which I saw in Hackney, and now Barrie Kosky’s new production for Berlin’s Komische Oper in its temporary home in Charlottenburg. Both are experienced, though neither was […]
2023-12-08 11:33:00
Dichterliebe Reimagined: Koen van Stade & Neal Peres Da Costa bring creative freedom & musical rhetoric to bear on Schumann's song cycle
Schumann: Dichterliebe;Koen van Stade, Neal Peres Da Costa; Deux-EllesReviewed 8 December 2023Two performer scholars come together for an interpretation led by surviving evidence of early recordings and treatises to magical and compelling effectWhen Julius Stockhausen and Johannes Brahms gave the first public performance of Schumann's Dichterliebe in 1861 (21 years after it was first written) what did it actually sound like? What did Schumann expect it to sound like. That 1861 performance has some currency, after all Brahms had known Robert Schumann well whilst Clara Schumann was still alive and in fact performed Dichterliebe with Stockhausen in 1862. In fact, the bass Robert Blass (1867-1930) studied with Stockhausen and recorded two songs, 'Im wunderschönen Monat Mai' and 'Ich grolle nicht' in 1903, and mezzo-soprano Therese Behr-Schnabel (1876-1959), also a Stockhausen pupil, recorded 'Ich grolle nicht' in 1904.Whilst orchestras and instrumentalists have mined early recordings for information about performance practice in late 19th […]
2023-07-19 10:41:00
Munich Opera Festival (1) - Così fan tutte, 17 July 2023
Nationaltheater Fiordiligi – Louise Alder Dorabella – Avery Amereau Guglielmo/Gulielmo – Konstantin Krimmel Ferrando – Sebastian Kohlhepp/Jonas Hacker Despina – Sandrine Piau Don Alfonso – Johannes Martin Kränzle Benedict Andrews (director) Magda Willi (set designs) Victoria Behr (costumes) Mark Van Denesse (lighting) Katja Leclerc (dramaturgy) Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus director: Kamila Akhmedjanova) Bavarian State Orchestra Vladimir Jurowski (conductor) Images: ©Wilfried HöslDon Alfonso (Johannes Martin Kränzle), Despina (Sandrine Piau) It is refreshing to find a Così fan tutte that takes the very greatest of Mozart and Da Ponte’s three masterpieces (for the most part) seriously. The amount of nonsense I have seen and heard said of it at least matches that for Don Giovanni. That the nonsense may be genuinely ‘felt’ is neither here nor there, we are not supposed to say that; uninformed misunderstanding is just that, whether it concern an artwork, politics, or particle physics. Benedict Andrews’s production […]
2022-08-29 14:19:00
Salzburg Festival (5) - Katya Kabanova, 26 August 2022
FelsenreitschuleKatěrina Kabanova – Corinne Winters Marfa Ignatěvna Kabanova (Kabanicha) – Evelyn Herlitzius Varvara – Jarmila Balážová Boris Grigorjevič – David Butt Philip Váňa Kudrjáš – Benjamin Hulett Tichon Ivanyč Kabanov – Jaroslav Březina Savël Prokofjevič Dikoj – Jens Larsen Kuligin – Michael Mofidian Glaša – Nicole Chirka Fekluša – Ann-Kathrin NiemczykBarrie Kosky (director)Rufus Didwiszus (set designs)Victoria Behr (costumes)Franck Evin (lighting)Christian Arseni (dramaturgy)Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus director: Huw Rhys James)Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,Jakub Hrůša (conductor)Images: SF / Monika Rittershaus For me, Barrie Kosky has often been at his best when staging more serious operas, which do not lend themselves to his trademark ‘showbiz’ treatment, and for which he has shown a single-mindedness again quite different from what other stagings may have led us to expect. Pelléas, Rusalka, Eugene Onegin, and Iphigénie en Tauride spring immediately to mind. Others differ strongly, I know, so it is probably more a matter of taste […]
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