MusicalCriticism.com

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Opera Review: English National Opera premieres The Perfect American Philip Glass and Rudy Wurlitzer's The Perfect American, which uses the last few months of Walt Disney's life as a lens to explore Disney's personal character and wider themes related to wider American culture, doesn't really work as an opera, at least for much of its running time. Based on Peter Stephan Jungk's eponymous book and produced by Improbable in collaboration with ENO and Teatro Real Madrid, where the opera premiered in January of this year, American...more>

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Opera Preview: Garsington Opera Preview 2013 There were those who wondered how long Garsington Opera would be able to continue and to survive when it finally had to depart Garsington Manor, a few years after the death of Garsington founder Leonard Ingrams in 2005, but they reckoned without the extraordinary loyalty – and fund-raising ability – of a core...more>

Opera Interview: Lianna Haroutounian on the Royal Opera's Don Carlo Haroutounian prefers the five-act version of Don Carlo in Italian, but for an insightful dramatic reason: “The audience gets the complete experience of her story if there are five acts. In Fontainebleau, we see Elisabetta as a young, happy, brave girl; her main question in life is ‘will the prince love me?’ In an instant, she goes from this youthful euphoria, a representation of young love, to resignation as she embraces the gravity of her [public] role, her fate. The five-act version reveals the contrast between...more>

CD Review: Sony rereleases Classical Barbra with bonus tracks February 2013 saw the release of the newly remastered edition of Classical Barbra, a major cross-over album by pop star Barbra Streisand, including two previously unreleased tracks. Originally released in 1976, the album's production began three years earlier with Claus Ogerman at the helm in the roles of producer, arranger... more>

Opera Review: Puccini's La bohème returns to ENO One of the greatest strengths of Puccini’s La bohème is its sentimentality. But this is no run-of-the-mill sentimental sap, this is twilight-of-the-nineteenth-century-Italian sap, which means that those feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia are exacerbated not only by the self-indulgence typical of “feeling... more>

Opera Review: The Royal Opera honours Sir Colin Davis with The Magic Flute “Perchance to dream…” Hamlet’s soliloquy is difficult to forget whilst sitting through David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; not for its metaphorical fluidity but rather for its literal connotations: the production is like a dream, but one that continually vacillates between joy and nightmare as the opera progresses. Is this too gratuitous? For once, there is...more>

Opera Review: A new Nabucco for Covent Garden in the Verdi bicentenary year What does Nabucco mean for the modern subject? Depending on the production, it’s safe to say that one of three major themes will be highlighted. In the near ubiquitous presence of the chorus, one finds the plight of exile in the face of extreme hardship or political brutality; a struggle for power and loyalty as illustrated by... more>

Opera Review: Written on Skin at the Royal Opera House In a 2010 article, the composer Christopher Fox suggested that successful models for the composition of opera--for the operatic marriage of drama, words and music--'grew out of a radical re-thinking of theatrical convention; new subjects demanded new dramatic modes'. In other words, in answer to the common... more>

Opera Review: Roberto Alagna features in Madama Butterfly at the Liceu Having seen productions of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly that often verge on the overtly political, it was refreshing to see the Leiser and Caurier production at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, which essentially focuses on and fleshes out the dramatic tension inherent in the dénouement of the opera... more>

Opera Review: Medea at ENO Operatically speaking, the myth of the wronged woman and child murderess Medea has largely been filtered through Cherubini’s dramatic 1797 setting, especially since Maria Callas’s celebrated assumption of the role (not to mention her amazing, non-singing... more>

Opera Review: Puccini's Tosca returns to Covent Garden In his magnum opus, À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust wrote that sadism is at the root of all melodrama. Although he was likely contemplating operatic tradition generally, was there a particular melodrama living in his memory as exemplar? Perhaps not, but his maxim aptly applies to one of the greatest melodramas of all... more>

Concert Review: Joyce DiDonato at the Barbican Joyce DiDonato is an international phenomenon. It is a status that owes much to an incredibly successful year. DiDonato won a Grammy in 2012; sped on in the early part of 2013 to a series of deeply committed performances of the rare Maria Stuarda at the Met; and recently embarked on a European tour compulsory after an international opera star records an album. The marketing department at Virgin Classics must... more>

Opera Review: Rigoletto Live from the Met There is an intriguing serendipity between the sharp dramatic irony of Verdi’s Rigoletto and Michael Mayer’s new, operatic debut production at the Met. Mayer’s transposition to 1960s Las Vegas, whilst not wholly original (Jonathan Miller did something similar at ENO in ... more>

Reviews: Eugene Onegin at Covent Garden and La traviata at ENO "Triumph" and "Failure" are strong words to describe the impact of an opera performance. Both are bold and unambiguous; they leave little doubt about what "really happened" that night. Imaginations might easily run wild. But there is a problem in using words like these, adjectives that... more>

Opera Review: Opera North's new production of Verdi's Otello Verdi’s lifelong project to reconcile the extremes of the national and the personal, the grand and the intimate, come to a head in his penultimate opera, Otello. His well-known passion for Shakespeare cannot have been the only motivation for his decision to return to composition with this piece: the internal tensions surrounding... more>

Opera Review: Montemezzi's La Nave receives a rare outing Fortune has been unkind to the opera Italo Montemezzi considered his masterpiece, the 1918 epic La Nave. At its successful prima in Milan, where Tullio Serafin conducted, critics gushed over it and audiences identified strongly with its nationalist... more>

Opera Review: A new Carmen from ENO There is no other opera in the canon--even one of Verdi's--that is quite as embedded in the collective imagination of Western culture as Bizet's Carmen. Everyone knows the habanera and Escamillo's anthem, and the idea of a femme fatale is still rehashed today in television and film. Much can be said (and much has been said).... more>

Opera Review: Live telecast of Adès' The Tempest from the Met In a 1963 episode of the expressionist television series The Twilight Zone, a desperate screenwriter uses black magic to summon Shakespeare to the present. The Met's new production of Thomas Adès's The Tempest, broadcast live from Lincoln Center last Saturday, brings the Bard and expressionism together once again — only the "dark arts".... more>

Opera Review: Don Giovanni returns to ENO After so many productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni last season, this space has played host to my annoyance at the lack of productions of the opera unconcerned with morality. Is it really so much to ask that after 200 years we begin defamiliarizing the familiar? Imagine my surprise, then, when all along there was... more>

Opera Review: A new production of Handel's Julius Caesar at ENO Händel’s Julius Caesar at the English National Opera is exciting theatre – not least because of the magnificent dancing of the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre – but the production may need some getting used to. I attended last week’s dress rehearsal and was deeply unhappy with the concept... more>

Review Diary: Recent concert events in Budapest This concert formed part of a week of celebrations of Liszt in the Esztergom 'Vatican' – that is in the seat of the Archbishop of Esztergom – and it was organised for the fifth year by the Liszt Society. Liszt is mainly known by music lovers for his piano pieces and by few of his orchestral compositions... more>

BBC Proms Review: Glyndebourne brings Le nozze di Figaro to the Proms It’s difficult to imagine a venue less like Glyndebourne’s warm, intimate opera house than the Royal Albert Hall. No singer-friendly wooden panelling here – just cavernous spaces and those aerial mushrooms. As we’ve seen time and time again, what suits a deluxe modern theatre doesn’t always transfer well elsewhere.... more>

BBC Prom Review: The John Cage Centenary is marked by an ambitious Prom Whatever one might say about the stodginess of Proms programming, it is undeniable that giving over a full evening Prom to a celebration of John Cage in his centenary year was a brave and commendable move from the BBC and Roger Wright. Even more commendable than this basic fact - which may after all have been accomplished with hedging of bets and fallings... more>

BBC Prom Review: Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in Prom 63 For the first of the Berlin Philharmonic’s two concerts at this year’s Proms, Simon Rattle put together a programme that erred very much on the side of substance as opposed to spectacle. Although composers such as Wagner, Ravel and Sibelius clearly have barnstormers and crowd-pleasers in their catalogues... more>

Opera Review: A sensational Ravel double bill from Glyndebourne For the final new production of the 2012 Festival, Glyndebourne opted for a relative rarety in the operatic canon – the double bill of Ravel’s two one act operas, written fifteen years apart from each other and separated by the First World War. And what an emotional distance there is between them, L’Heure Espagnole.... more>

Proms Review: Prom 34 features Semyon Bychkov with the BBCSO In the morning of 8th August 2012, on the day of this concert, the BBC Symphony Orchestra announced that Semyon Bychkov will join their roster of conductors with a position created especially for him by the orchestra. The title Günter Wand Conducting Chair was chosen in recognition of the affection... more>

Opera Review: The Bavarian State Opera's Der Rosenkavalier with Renee Fleming Unlike Wagner's late operas, which pay ever increasing dividends for the time invested, the inadequacies of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier become ever more apparent on repeated exposure. Hofmannsthal's wordy libretto is partly to blame: everything seems to continue on long after the dramatic and musical point has already been made. And when this is combined... more>

CD Review: The Word Unspoken from Signum The extraordinary nature of William Byrd’s life and the impact that it had on his music has been well documented on disc since the late 60s when, amongst others, Sir David Willcocks and The Choir of King’s College Cambridge recorded motets by Byrd And His Contemporaries (EMI 1965) and Cantores In Ecclesia directed.... more>

Proms Review: Prom 15 brings together Smetana and Dvorak with the BBCSO It was back in 1940 that the Hungarian born conductor George Szell orchestrated Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, ‘From My Life’ and later, in 1944, he included the piece in his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra. Within two years Szell was asked to become the orchestra’s music director and he held the post until his death in 1970. Szell and the CO recorded his Smetana... more>

Opera Review: OHP's Falstaff Verdi’s Falstaff is quite a tricky work to produce well and Opera Holland Park’s production proved that beyond a measurable doubt. It’s delicate blend of music and poignant—though, certainly at times, irreverent—perspective of the human condition ("Tutto nel mondo é burla") are a hallmark of Verdi’s final stroke of genius.... more>

Opera Review: Otello at Covent Garden Most agree that opera experienced a golden age in the latter half of the 20th century. It was a time when one went to the opera to hear very difficult works performed at the highest quality: singers had no problems projecting over the largest orchestras in the world and reaching the very back of the house. ... more>

Opera Review: The Bavarian State Opera's Turandot How do you solve a problem like Turandot? Perhaps by not trying to. Franco Alfano and more recently Luciano Berio have each attempted to complete the opera from the mass of sketches Puccini left at his death. But Alfano’s ending is felt by most to be too bombastic and Berio’s too out of keeping with the style of the rest. So, in Carlus Padrissa’s spectacular new production for Bavarian... more>

Opera Review: Lully's Armide at Glimmerglass Festival "It’s good to be the king," says a smug Mel Brooks famously while dressed as Louis XVI in the 1981 film comedy, History of the World, Part I. But for listeners brought up on a steady diet of da capo and bel canto arias from 18th and 19th-century operas, the seemingly endless drone of récitatifs and airs endemic to 17th-century... more>

Proms Review: Prom 11 showcases The Royal Opera's Les troyens There is no other opera that can legitimately match Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens for its sheer musical and dramatic ingenuity, creative prowess, and magnificent scale. Berlioz’s epic is genius: he wrote the libretto himself to create a truly unique work; an opera that is both loosely based on (Acts I and II and the end of V) and strictly conforming to (Acts III, IV, and V) Virgil’s... more>

Opera Review: Bryn Terfel in the Bavarian State Opera's Tosca Those beautiful Puccini arias that are the mainstay of opera compilation CDs are, of course, even better in the theatre. But it is the high stakes, life and death struggles, usually in the second act, usually between a bass and a soprano, where his operas earn their place in the repertory. He had an unerring gift for dramatic... more>

Proms Review: Rare Handel from Laurence Cummings and the OAE in Prom 8 Composed in 1746 and revised in 1750, surprisingly this performance was the Prom debut of Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus. Performances of this oratorio tend to be few and far between, yet in Handel’s lifetime – and throughout the 19th century as well as into the 20th century – it was highly regarded... more>

Opera Review: A new production of Britten's Billy Budd at ENO Britten’s Billy Budd tells such a tragic tale that it is harrowing to experience even if one just reads the libretto (by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville). There is no light relief at all in the story, which centres around the destruction of young Billy by the sadistic Claggart but also portrays cruelty as... more>

Interview: We chat to the cast of Nixon in China at the SF Opera The summer season at the San Francisco Opera started a couple of weeks ago, and audience and critics agree that Nixon in China, the famous first opera by John Adams, represents one of the highlights of the operatic summer. The SF Opera presented a sober and subtle production from the Vancouver Opera... more>

Opera Review: Luisotti and Furlanetto make Verdi's Attila shine This production of Attila at the San Francisco Opera represented one of the most precious operatic experiences for this particular member of the audience. The singers displayed an exceptional level of harmony with one another and with the orchestra. Moreover, maestro Nicola Luisotti's passionate reading of the score revealed one surprise after another... more>

CD review: The Schubert Ensemble performs Brahms and Schubert The Schubert Ensemble are highly regarded for their sensitive, musical performances of the piano plus strings repertoire – especially the Schubert and Brahms masterpieces. It is a real shame, then, that on these two discs they have been let down by poor recording.... more>

Opera review: Cosi fan tutte at Opera Holland Park All six principal singers were excellent. They sounded ideal in their roles even though Dorabella’s soprano part was taken by mezzo-soprano Julia Riley (whose looks and singing style reminded me, rightly or wrongly, of a young Felicity Lott). Tenor Andrew Staples... more>

Concert Review: Florian Boesch at the Aldeburgh Festival The Austrian bass-baritone Florian Boesch has been making quite a name for himself in recent years, and when it was announced that he would step in at very short notice at the Aldeburgh Festival for an indisposed Matthias Goerne there were muffled whoops of... more>

Opera Review: Nixon in China successfully debuts at the San Francisco Opera On Friday 8 June, the San Francisco Opera presented the long-awaited Bay Area debut of Nixon in China, the first opera by one of the most acclaimed contemporary composers, John Adams. After twenty-five years since its premiere, this work by Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman remains equally controversial and popular. At the end of the performance... more>

Review: Garsington takes on Vivaldi's Olympian L'Olimpiade L’Olimpiade, Metastasio’s libretto of 1733 – written 1340 years after the last of the ancient Olympic games – provides the text for a pastoral opera with the background of the Olympic games. It is a play set in green outdoors with aristocratic characters, one of whom is disguised as a shepherdess. What better setting for such an opera than the new Wormsley... more>

CD Review: Naive releases L'Olimpiade by a range of composers As the 2012 Olympics approach, London is bedecked with nationalist symbolism not only for the games but for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which would appear to have provoked us, as a nation, to rejoice in a nostalgic revisiting of 1950s taste. Whereas coronation favourites such as teacakes and sponge... more>

CD Review: The Florestan Trio records Beethoven's Piano Trios on Hyperion Just a few months ago, after sixteen successful years together the Florestan Trio gave their last concerts in London. Now Anthony Marwood (violin), Richard Lester (cello) and Susan Tomes (piano) are each off exploring fresh musical pastures. So this four-disc boxed set of the Beethoven Trios, each released individually... more>

Review: David McVicar's production of Salome returns to Covent Garden It may not matter a great deal in the large scheme of things, but I am puzzled by an arguably small change between Richard Strauss' score of Salome and stage director David McVicar's realisation. In the score the executioner is not listed among the roles although he is referred to in the German stage directions... more>

Opera Review: Glanert's Caligula comes to ENO Detlev Glanert’s opera on Albert Camus’ 1944 play Caligula, with a libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel,premiered to great acclaim in Frankfurt in 2006. Caligula’s first UK production opened at the Coliseum last night in a new staging by much-admired theatre director Benedict Andrews... more>

Editorial: Opera Holland Park's new season offers rarities and favourites Opera Holland Park continues to surprise its diverse audience with eclectic offerings; indeed, the company’s egalitarian spirit and focus on both popular and obscure (mostly Italian and especially versimo) operas has certainly brought the genre to a larger, younger audience whilst still catering for aficionados. To successfully... more>

Opera Review: A new Falstaff for Covent Garden Verdi’s final opera is a consummate blend of comedy, shades of melodrama, and self-parody. It takes a truly disciplined production to manifest some of these associations, and Robert Carson’s crowd pleaser at the Royal Opera takes great strides toward this difficult goal. It helped, though, that the singers... more>

Concert Review: Jordi Savall at the Lufthansa Festival With his ensemble Le Concert des Nations – named after Couperin’s unification of European styles in his innovative collection Les nations – the grand old man of baroque Jordi Savall emphasizes a variety of baroque styles within the communality of high quality music making... more>

Concert Review: Stephane Deneve says farewell to the RSNO So Scotland bids adieu to Stéphane Denève. After seven years of lighting up Scottish concert life, he bowed out in a blaze of glory, fêted by politicians, diplomats, business leaders, fellow artists, and the loyal audience that he has built during his... more>

Opera review: Madam Butterfly at ENO There are certain operas in the canon that mysteriously need nothing else except their music to successfully compel audiences. As one of the most consistently performed since its (fifth) revision, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly certainly ranks within this selection— however ironically since operas are by nature more than "just music."... more>

Concert Review: Stephane Deneve with the RSNO Long after memories of this concert melt into the general filing system, people will remember the encore that the Canadian virtuoso James Ehnes performed tonight: Paganini's famous caprice no. 24. It is hard to think of another work that says ‘look upon my encore, o ye mortals... more>

Concert review: The Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Jakub Hrusa Most of the buzz about Gramophone Magazine's 'ten conductors on the verge of greatness', published this time last year, seems to have been generated by Gramophone Magazine. Maybe that's because, being behind a paywall, their content doesn't get linked to – and links are what make internet ... more>

Concert Review: Beethoven with the SCO Although he met with little success in the opera house, there is quite a substantial body of work for the theatre in Beethoven’s catalogue. Most of the time, all we hear in the concert-hall are the overtures, but the SCO’s choral season finale presented a welcome opportunity to ... more>

Opera review: La boheme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Productions of Puccini’s works these days inevitably raise questions about operatic realism or, as it’s more commonly known, verismo. At first glance, operatic realism doesn’t appear to be a very complicated issue. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, composers and librettists (of the giovane scoula)... more>

Opera Review: Wagner's Flying Dutchman at ENO Oscar Wilde famously said of The Old Curiosity Shop: 'One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without dissolving into tears ... of laughter'. The same might be said of The Flying Dutchman where, in one of the... more>

Editorial: Walt Disney becomes the subject of new opera for ENO English National Opera announced its 2012-2013 season this morning and, as one might expect, it is typical of the company: bold, innovative, and "risky." John Berry, the artistic director, additionally emphasized the family values (if you will) of the company, highlighting the many artists that will be returning to give a little back to the institution responsible for nurturing their careers... more>

Opera review: Willy Decker's Traviata at the Met starring Dessay Willy Decker wasn't the first man to try and gain a better perspective of the courtesan Violetta by examining what lay beneath the iconic red dress. But I have to wonder whether the German director's psychological undressing of the heroine in the present Met production has uncovered anything more revealing than his predecessors... more>

Opera Review: The Collegiate Chorale perform The MikadoThe Mikado is possibly one of the most frequently-played operettas world-wide. This season there was a new production at the Gärtnerplatz in Munich, among other venues. The reasons for its enduring popularity are not difficult to fathom... more>

Opera Review: A gay reworking of Don Giovanni at London's Heaven nightclub Opera houses and nightclubs have more in common than one might think. In nineteenth-century Italy, it was common for Austrian authorities to take an interest in the programming of many houses, simply because a large part of the educated population congregated there and could be easily observed. Of course, these days systems of power are further decentralized and... more>

Opera Review: A rare outing for Jakob Lenz at ENO During ENO’s new production of Wolfgang Rihm’s chamber opera Jakob Lenz (1977-8), Andrew Shore, putting in an impressive turn in the title role, ends up getting dunked in an onstage pool of water no fewer than four times. New director on the block, Sam Brown, though, has good artistic reasons for this treatment of his more experienced leading man. The source for... more>

Editorial: Musical diversity in Budapest Established in 1853, the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra is Hungary's oldest functioning orchestra. Drawn from musicians of the Hungarian State Opera, for many years it was Hungary's only professional orchestra. They worked with such distinguished composer-conductors... more>

Opera Review: Rameau's Acante et Céphise Operatic “special occasion” pieces usually die with their final curtain call, though the most notable exception is probably Rossini’s Il viaggo a Reims, which stubbornly persists to this day. Interestingly, University College Opera (which has a long history of performing rare or new works) mounted a production... more>

Opera Review: Judith Weir's disappointing new Miss Fortune Whenever I see a new opera, I play a game. I simply ignore entirely the programme notes and synopsis. Often, this little bit of fun allows me to recapture the excitement of audience members past. To witness a new work in all its glory, experience the plot twists and turns, the text, and the music in the... more>

Opera Review: The Guildhall's Midsummer Night's Dream The last outing of Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream on the London opera stage seemed to be more concerned with the composer's sexuality than with his witty masterpiece based on Shakespeare's play (May 2011, English National Opera). Once bitten twice shy, thus one could be forgiven for being slightly worried about other... more>

Opera Review: English National Opera's Death of Klinghoffer John Adams' and Alice Goodman's 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer has been trailed by controversy throughout its twenty-one year history. Scheduled performances at Glyndebourne and the Los Angeles Opera were cancelled after the stormy reception the opera received following its 1991 New York... more>

Opera Review: Ernani live from the Met Undoubtedly for some, seeing opera live in cinemas is quite enjoyable. As I reclined in my large seat and munched on some popcorn at my nearest local cinema (Curzon Chelsea), I wondered if displaced opera was the way of the future. After all, there are serious advantages to watching opera in a cinema... more>

Editorial: The Maestro myth? The Royal Opera recently announced that it would be furthering its collaboration with the BBC by playing host to the television reality/contest show 'Maestro.' In contrast to the first season of the show, there will be only... more>

Opera Review: Rusalka comes to Covent Garden for the first time Rusalka has finally made it to Covent Garden, but, in Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito's wilfully shabby production, it has arrived in inexpressive and unlovely form. The boos and countering cheers that greeted the directorial team at the curtain—even though this was branded a new production, it was first seen in Salzburg in 2008... more>

Concert Review: Mark Elder conducts Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet Hector Berlioz was not generally a reticent composer, least of all when it came to pronouncing on the value of his own music and the attention it deserved. Writing about his 1839 ‘symphonie dramatique’ Roméo et Juliette he insisted: “The work is enormously difficult to perform... more>

Opera Review: Raymond Gubbay's Aida at the Royal Albert Hall Verdi's Aida is extremely intertextual. Conditioned by the historical events surrounding its première and, as an inevitable product of nineteenth-century Orientalism, scholars have fruitfully mined it for decades for both its historical and critical significance. The new production at the Royal Albert Hall... more>

Opera Review: Silent Opera performs La boheme in the Old Vic Tunnels Silent Opera present La Bohème in the series of linked rooms that form the complex of tunnels under the approach to Waterloo Station. Trains rumble and clatter overhead, the venue shakes and echoes but - or so runs the concept, as set out in the programme blurb - you "walk around with a... more>

Concert Review: Vivica Genaux performs Vivaldi with Europa Galante Living in a city as rich in musical diversity as New York, it's easy to become slightly blasé about the wealth of opportunities for hearing classical music in live performance. Therefore, it was an uncommon thrill to be present when Fabio Biondi and his superb ensemble Europa Galante took the stage and... more>