Opéra-Comique News
opera company in Paris, France
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2024-04-22
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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
Bizet: Carmen, Act One - Blaise Malaba, Aighul Akhmetshina - Royal Opera House (Photo: ROH/Camilla Greenwell)Bizet: Carmen; Aigul Akhmetshina, Piortr Beczala, Olga Kulchynska, Kostas Smoriginas, director: Damiano Michieletto, conductor: Antonello Manacorda; Royal OperaReviewed 5 April 2024The new production pairs finely musical performances with a sense of gritty realism and a reluctance to add any local colour and movement.For all its iconic status and abundance of good tunes, Bizet's Carmen remains something of a challenge for large opera companies. Until relatively recently matters of edition and style were unquestioning, the grand opera version with Ernest Guiraud's recitatives and a setting that was 'traditional 19th-century Spain'. Since then, things have got more complex with a return to using the opera comique version and a wish to avoid the lazy stage-Spanish stereo-types. It is worth emphasising that the Bizet's opera has little Spanish input, composer, librettists and original author were all French men. And whilst […]
2024-03-13 08:05:00
Little short of a revelation: Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques & Christophe Rousset explore Wagner's influences with In the Shadows
In the Shadows: Auber, Bellini, Berlioz, Halévy, Méhul, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Spontini, Weber, Wagner; Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset; EratoReviewed 12 March 2024A wonderfully imaginative recital, showcasing both the wide range and variety of Wagner's musical influences as well as Spyres' own virtuosity and adaptabilityThe mature Richard Wagner would have wanted you to think that his art sprang directly from his imagination, without the influence of other composers, but the reality was more complex. The young Richard was something of a sponge, soaking up influences from all over. For instance, in 1833 Würzburg Theatre staged Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (premiered in Paris in 1831), it was the operatic event of the year. Richard Wagner's brother Albert was singing the title role and had managed to get Richard a job as chorus master at the theatre. 20-year-old Richard rehearsed the choruses of Meyerbeer's opera and this first exposure to the […]
2024-03-03 11:00:41
On this day in 1875 Bizet‘s Carmen has its disastrous premiere at the Opéra Comique in Paris
2024-03-02 09:03:00
Shamus O'Brien: withdrawn by the composer for political reasons, Stanford's most popular opera languished in the 20th century but all that seems set to change
Retrospect Opera's recording of Stanford's Shamus O'Brien in rehearsalCharles Villiers Stanford’s opera Shamus O'Brien premiered in 1896 in London. It was easily his most popular opera, running for over 80 performances in the West End before going on an extensive tour in Britain and Ireland, then in 1897 it also enjoyed a two-month run in New York. An explicitly Irish work, set against the backdrop of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Stanford withdrew the opera shortly before the First World War. As the politics of Home Rule intensified in the 1910s, Stanford, an ardent Unionist, worried that the opera might foment Irish nationalism and anti-English sentiment; the ban effectively remained in place until his death in March 1924.King Baggot and Vivian Prescott in the 1912 silent film Shamus O'BrienBut after that, the opera returned to the stage and was broadcast by the BBC in the 1930s. Since then the work has […]
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