All tagged Takis

La cucina - Synnott / Adina - Rossini & Don Quichotte – Massenet

The Wexford Festival Opera, which began in 1951 under a group of opera lovers led by Tom Walsh, goes from strength to strength.  David Agler’s tenure as the seventh Artistic Director in Wexford’s history comes to an end this year and his wonderful associate Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi has been appointed to take over.  Agler will have had 13 years at the helm; one year more than Elaine Padmore, but one year less than the first Artistic Director, Tom Walsh himself. 

Un ballo in maschera – Verdi – Opera Holland Park – Young Artist Performance

The original Greek Director Rodula Gaitanou, with design by Takis, produced an attractive moveable wooden panelled set that was used throughout this opera - apart from the great entrance of the Fortune Teller.  In this Young Artist performance the direction was taken on by Rachel Hewer, who has worked on a number of shows at the Royal College of Music and Glyndebourne.  She had Sion Corder as her Lighting Director, Steve Elias as the Movement Director and Brett Yount as the Fight Director, all from the main production.  The work was updated to the 1940s, but still retained its ambiguous eccentricities and disguised assassin’s violence, which were a pre-cursor to the death of Gustavo.  The area of concern was always the replacement of the cemetery scene with a hospital scene, which didn’t necessarily reflect the storyline, particularly the need for Amelia to suffer injections to cure her love.  Bizarre!

Phaedra – Henze – Linbury Theatre – Royal Opera House

Hans Werner Henze died at the age of 86 in 2012.  He was a German Atonal Composer and left Germany for Italy in 1953 due to an intolerance toward his left wing politics and homosexuality.  He became a member of the Italian communist party and indeed wrote a Requiem in 1968 for Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh.  He even spent a year teaching in Cuba.  Whilst his father enrolled him in the Hitler Youth, it was clear that music was his forte and after the Second World War he became a Conductor at the Wiesbaden Staatstheater.