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
Giacamo Puccini’s La boheme is probably the most popular of all operas in the classical repertoire. This 4 act opera had its world premiere in Turin in 1896 and was conducted at that time by Toscanini. 50 years later he conducted a commemorative performance in New York, which was recorded by RCA.
Giacomo Puccini’s first staged work was the one act opera ‘Les Willis’ based on a short story by Jean Baptiste-Karr. The story tells the tale of the love between Anna and Roberto. Roberto is enchanted away from Anna by another and Anna dies of a broken heart. Her father calls upon the ‘Villi’ to take vengeance and the Fairies make Roberto dance until he dies of exhaustion. This one act opera was written for a competition, but politics played and it did not get even an honourable mention. However, Puccini’s work was heard by Ricordi, who immediately recognised its outstanding qualities and he published the work.
In 1958, Benjamin Britten was asked to write a work for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral – the old one had been bombed and destroyed in 1940 and hundreds of people had died. Britten decided that this work would commemorate the dead of both World Wars and his text combines the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead, with fairly dour poems by Wilfred Owen. After its premiere in 1962, Shostakovich regarded Britten’s War Requiem as ‘The greatest work of the 20th century’ and indeed it was universally hailed as a masterpiece.
Jules Massenet took a novel from Goethe to compose a lyrical 4 act opera from a French libretto by Eduard Blau. It was meant to have its premiere at the Paris Opera Comique in 1887, but due to a fire at the Opera House this did not happen and it did not take place until 1892 in a German language translation in Vienna. The French language premiere followed that year in Geneva.
David Alden’s 2008 staging is brought back to the Coliseum for its second revival, with an outstanding cast, a compelling translation into English by Amanda Holden and clever moving sets by Charles Edwards. This is a truly interesting performance of a subject – forced marriage, here of Lucia – which is relevant in some communities even today. However, this is the Scottish Highlands and the dark and unattractive costumes, designed by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, are a testament to Highland imagery.
In a remarkable career spanning six decades, Giuseppe Verdi 1813-1901, composed nearly 30 operas, at least half of which are at the core of today’s repertoire. His Requiem, premiered in 1874, stands as a unique testimony to his artistic and human vision and is a setting of the text for the Roman Catholic mass for the dead as it existed until its revision in 1970.
Porgy & Bess, the folk opera composed by George Gershwin with the libretto by the original author, DuBose Heyward and Lyricist, Ira Gershwin, was first performed in Boston in 1935. The libretto tells the story of Porgy, a black disabled street beggar living in the Charleston slums, attempting to rescue his love, Bess, from the clutches of Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and her drug dealer, Sporting Life.
Götterdämmerung, the last of the four operas making up Wagner’s Ring Cycle, held our breath throughout the six and a half hours of operatic intensity. Keith Warner’s production comes to its sizzling end as the ring and the gold is once more returned to its home with the rhinemaidens, beautifully, and finally fleshily, played by Lauren Fagan, Christina Bock and Angela Simkin.
For those opera lovers expecting a standard fayre Salome, this production is not for you.
Die Walkure is the second part of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle and is based on Norse mythology, where a Valkyrie is a female figure who decides in battle which soldier shall live or die. It received its premiere in Munich in 1870 and was first presented as part of the complete Ring Cycle in 1876 in Bayreuth.
Rheingold is the first of four operas that constitute Wagner’s der Ring Des Nibelungen and was premiered in Munich in 1869. Wagner wrote the Ring librettos in reverse order, with Rheingold last but the first to be set to music. The premiere of the whole Ring Cycle was at the Bayreuth in 1876.
What fun, as is usual when young singers perform together in any environment and this was no exception. Four Sopranos, each different and each one showing us an incredible range and repertoire was a real treat.
Paul Bunyan is an American legend – a giant lumberjack with Titanic power and strength. In folklore, he and his blue ox named Babe are said to be responsible for the creation of several American landscapes and natural wonders including the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, Mount Hood and the Grand Canyon. Today undoubtedly, in Trump’s America, they would regard this as ‘fakelore’!
As the thunderstorm roared and the rain fell on the canvas roof, Opera Holland Park’s Ariadne got off to a slow and uncertain start. The prologue and particularly The Party Planner of Eleanor Bron were most difficult to hear, that is until the entrance and the ecstasy of The Composer sung by the Swedish soprano, Julia Sporsen. She was a revelation with flawless delivery and a performance that tugged at the heartstrings, particularly when confronting her relationship with the Zerbinetta of Jennifer France.
Not particularly well received at its premiere, as with others he directed, specifically Meistersingers, Kasper Holten’s production of Don Giovanni, revived by Amy Lane, becomes a much more interesting and user friendly production third time round.
Giuseppe Verdi had written 27 operas by the time he started a four year project to in 1889 to write only his second comedy opera. His first comedy work ‘Un giormo di regno’ was staged unsuccessfully in 1840 and Rossini, a great admirer of Verdi, commented that he thought him incapable of writing a comedy. Verdi was concerned that at his advanced age, to start a new substantial project was a real risk. However, such was his profile that at the world premiere of Falstaff at La Scala Milan in early 1893, the huge success of his work was recognised with an applause lasting almost an hour.
Michael Chance, the new Artistic Director at the Grange Festival, was an outstanding singer, and is now proving to be somewhat of an extraordinary artistic director in difficult circumstances. He says “We strive to produce work that is informed, supported, creatively imagined and collaboratively executed”.
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 collaboration between the Royal Opera and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama was established in 2013 as an opportunity for one composer every two years to research and write a major operatic work. Na’ama Zisser is the second such composer in residence, and she studied at the Royal College of Music under Turnage. Together with her sister Rachel and her partner Samantha Newton, who jointly wrote the libretto, they have structured a new chamber opera called Mamzer Bastard.
The overall success of Glyndebourne as the leading country opera house was cemented in 2018 with two very high quality operas.
