Reply With QuoteWatched the ROH Don Giovanni livestream yesterday - excellent cast, a rather heartbreaking twist, and moderate headache from the projections/lighting effects. Also: can Holten stop dressing baritone leads in this particular shade of blue?
I have that DVD. Great performance!Originally Posted by MAuer
"Music is enought for a whole lifetime--but a lifetime is not enough for music." --Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff
Watched the ROH Don Giovanni livestream yesterday - excellent cast, a rather heartbreaking twist, and moderate headache from the projections/lighting effects. Also: can Holten stop dressing baritone leads in this particular shade of blue?
The production can be kind of funny sometimes (those Obviously Painted sets, oh my god), but singing-wise, this is almost as perfect as the '58 one. Heavenly.
Il trovatore (Scala 2014) - couldn't find a cover photo
This is a classic case of a very pretty production with zero Personenregie. There are a few nice touches, but it desperately needs someone to whip it in shape. It looks like something from 40 years ago.
Singing is mostly good, although far from he "four greatest singers" level. The costumes are ridiculously beautiful but they seem very impractical. I kept expecting someone to trip on their own sleeve or cloak. The armours, on the other hand, are bad. I have seen cosplayers throw together more realistic armour in their garage.
All in all, this is roughly like the old Met production - maybe a little less tacky, but the same park-and-bark affair.
Le Nozze Di Figaro
Diana Damrau and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo were splendid as Susanna and Figaro!
Currently on Walküre. I wanted to see this production for a long time, looks pretty tame compared to some more recent Rings
After nearly a week and a refreshing Don Giovanni break, I finished the Kupfer Ring. The production is ok - I still prefer both the Chéreau and the Copenhagen - but it has a much better Siegfried than either of those. Also, young John Tomlinson is phenomenal as Wotan.
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Siegfried Jerusalem (Tristan), Waltraud Meier (Isolde), Matthias Hölle (Konig Marke), Falk Struckmann (Kurwenal), Uta Priew (Brangaene), Poul Elming (Melot/Seemann), Peter Maus (Hirt)
Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Daniel Barenboim, Heiner Müller
Jerusalem is good, Meier is very good in parts and the sound is a bit pants in places (technical term for bad). Overall left feeling it's not quite hit the mark. Call it a bit Yohji Yamamoto if you want; black and not saying very much.
4.997/10
MAuer liked this post
I blame Luiz for this -- first for mentioning Olga Bezsmertna (Marzelline), and then for posting that wonderful interview with JK!
From Teatro di San Carlo, Napoli.
Simon Boccanegra (Ambrogio Maestri, John Relyea, Myrtò Papatanasiu, Saimir Pirgu)
A traditional staging from 2017 and I loved it. Not sure about the young Simon's Beatle wig though!
"Every theatre is an insane asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for the incurables."
FRANZ SCHALK, attributed, Losing the Plot in Opera: Myths and Secrets of the World's Great Operas
Glyndebourne 1981 Rather static first scene but peps up whenever Maria Ewing, John Rawnsley and Claudio Desderi are onstage- just as well they are the leads!! So much to enjoy but an average production overall.
Florestan liked this post
Tcherniakov Onegin which seemed to be a Bolshoi guest performance in Paris?
Musically, very satisfying, and it looks pretty, but the "whole thing indoors" concept doesn't always work. It's nowhere near as Wild as Tcherniakov's RPG session Trovatore (in which everyone rolled nat 1s, plot-wise). Kwiecien is always a delight.
I loved the Tcherniakov Onegin, maybe my favorite Onegin of them all.
"J'ai dit qu'il ne suffisait pas d'entendre la musique, mais qu'il fallait encore la voir" (Stravinsky)
"Music is enought for a whole lifetime--but a lifetime is not enough for music." --Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff
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