Here, I post my reviews and document my love of opera. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to comment on any of my posts or contact me if you wish to.
Have a nice stay!
David Buchler
All tagged Richard Jones
The intimacy of Richard Jones’s production of La Boheme is well conceived. However, the rooftop apartment shared by the writers and artists is rather lacking in 19th century Marseilles style. It has clean lines and beautiful fresh pinewood sets. There is no hint of atmospheric old town accommodation and even the ladder through the sky roof, constantly open to the elements, does not really make sense, nor does the smoke from the chimney when there is no working fireplace.
The evening didn’t start well. The writer’s request for a complimentary programme to enhance information for a review was soundly rebuffed by the Vorderhausmanager in charge of the Opera House, Charles Edward Maxwell. His riposte of ‘This is not how it’s done in Germany, you have to write and fill out a form’ was somewhat akin to ‘We have ways of making you feel unwelcome’! But then perhaps Mr Maxwell’s unkindly intervention could be somewhat reflective of the rather stiff attitude at the top at the Munich Staatsoper?
This one act seven scene version of modest Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov is incredibly powerful in its own right, but when it is cast with an outstanding group of singers the musicality is hugely enhanced, as was the case on this night – even if there was not a complete Russian born cast.
Born in 1854, Leos Janacek was a Czech Composer whose music was inspired by Slavic folk music and contemporaries such as Dvorak. Although his first opera, Jenufa (dedicated to the memory of his young daughter) was first performed in 1904 in the city of Brno, it wasn’t until a revised version of Jenufa was performed in Prague in 1916 that Janacek first received great acclaim - at the age of 62. A year later he met a young married woman (38 years his junior), who inspired him for the remaining years of his life, until his death in 1928.
Richard Jones must be delighted by this latest outing of his 2017 new production of La Bohème. The production is tighter and clearer. He and his designer Stewart Laing have put a huge amount of effort into the Act 2 Café Momus scene. It is outstanding, as he provides 3 shopping arcades on the stage, which eventually move apart as the Café Momus set arrives for the main part of that Act.
The overall success of Glyndebourne as the leading country opera house was cemented in 2018 with two very high quality operas.
This four act opera by Dmitry Shostakovich was premiered in 1934 in St Petersburg and two days later in Moscow. It is the story of a lonely woman in 19th century Russia, who falls in love with one of her husband’s workers and is driven to murder. It was condemned in 1936 and banned in the Soviet Union for almost 30 years.
What is a banker in operatic terms? This is not a financial question! Stand up Richard Jones for producing a La Boheme banker for the Royal Opera House, which will undoubtedly be performed for many years to come, but I imagine not as much as the wonderful old production by John Copley.
