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
As the coronavirus approached its peak in Britain and the cobwebs grew larger at London’s Coliseum, there came sad news that the English National Opera’s illustrious head, Sir Peter Jonas, had passed away.
I have a list of approximately 20 opera scenes & arias that are amongst my favourites in the operatic repertoire. For my audience purpose, I have taken this list from YouTube, so not all my favourite recordings are in the list, but it is an extraordinary list with extraordinary singers and musicians and I hope you can take as much enjoyment from this group as I have in compiling them. I am dividing my list into groups of approximately six over the next few weeks to give you between 30 and 45 minutes of musical relaxation. Enjoy!
Verdi’s Luisa Miller opened in Naples at the end of 1849. It was his fifteenth opera and regarded as the beginning of his middle period. Based on Schiller’s play Intrigue and Love it never has had the popularity of some of Verdi’s other works and indeed its UK debut at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London was not until nearly 10 years after its premiere.
Whilst the first of three versions of Fidelio was premiered in Vienna in 1805, it wasn’t until 1814 that the final version titled Fidelio – as opposed to Leonore for the previous two – was itself premiered to critical acclaim, with the original three Act version now reduced to two Acts. This was Beethoven’s only opera and he best described it in a letter to one of his Librettists, Georg Friedrich Treitschke, that his ‘Cooperation had saved what is best from the shipwreck’.
Puccini’s ‘disaster’ Madam Butterfly premiered at La Scala Milan in February 1904 and was so badly received that it wasn’t until the summer of 1904 that a second version was more successful. Thereafter there were more revisions until the 1907 fifth revision, which became today’s ‘standard version’.
It is over 300 years since the premiere of this operatic masterpiece by Handel, who was 24 years old at the time of composition. It depicts a Roman story of some 2,000 years ago, satirising the politicians of that day. But of course in this very modern interpretation of this piece by the Director David McVicar, whilst the times have changed the world certainly hasn’t. The Metropolitan Opera’s General Manager Peter Gelb said ‘Agrippina is a dark comedy about corrupt leaders who lie and manipulate in their quest to stay in power. We are grateful to the White House for making Agrippina feel more immediate’.
In honour of the centenary of the birth of perhaps the greatest violinist ever to grace the stage of Carnegie Hall, Isaac Stern, one of our greatest violinists today, the imperious Maxim Vengerov, played a concert of some merit with his piano playing partner, the Russian wunderkind Polina Osetinskaya. The programme had no hint of Russian music, not even in the four encores and perhaps that is why the evening didn’t really take off until the very end.
The stage was set, the audience ready, with plenty of children watching in the matinee performance, all ready in anticipation of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, written by the Irish Composer Gerald Barry, with staging by Anthony McDonald.
Calixto Bieito, the Director of this production, first seen in 2012, brings his own personal interpretation of an unyielding Carmen in the midst of early 1970’s Franco-type testosterone-filled masculinity. No quarter is given. The male soldiers are at the same time playful boys and violent nasty male caricatures. The misogynistic treatment of women stands out in this stripped back production, but the gratuitous violence that simmers throughout the evening is at times unedifying and disturbing.
I would like to think that the seat I occupied at the Nice Opera was once sat on by Napoleon the III himself. The original 1776 wooden theatre was rebuilt in 1826 and Napoleon the III was known to have been a visitor, particularly when Johann Strauss led the orchestra during the 1860’s. However, it is very unlikely that a ‘higher’ derriere than mine sat in my seat as that theatre was burnt to the ground during a performance of Donizetti’s Lucia de Lammermoor in 1881 – perhaps Lucia did get her revenge after all – and a new theatre was born in 1885.
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.
La Traviata may have inspired countless works – including Moulin Rouge – but the opera itself is actually based on a real life Violetta, who was a courtesan named Marie Duplessis, born in Normandy, France in 1824.
It’s a new dawn at the Theater Basel. It’s all change in the artistic department with a new Artistic Director arriving in 2020, replacing the successful Andreas Beck. The outstanding Henriette Goetz has arrived via ENO and Munich, Christina Poska has taken over as Music Director and was conducting her first new production in the much anticipated La Boheme, directed by the implacable Daniel Kramer
Verdi’s penultimate opera is probably his greatest tragic musical masterpiece and the opening night of Keith Warner’s 2017 production did not disappoint. Warner’s production followed in the footsteps of Elijah Moshinsky’s glorious 30 year old production. The sets designed by Boris Kudlicka are made up of sliding and moveable fragments that either open the stage, such as in the outstanding opening storm scene, or close the stage when intimacy is required.
The Welsh National Opera’s history began in 1943 as a result of the efforts of a group of miners, teachers and doctors. It tours across the UK reaching some 30 theatres across Wales and England, entertaining audiences with operas and concerts and showing future generations that opera is rewarding, relevant and a powerful universal art form.
For more than 20 years the Samling Institute for Young Artists has brought together emerging singers together with international artists who act as a bridge and tutor between the conclusion of studies and the beginning of professional life. The roster of Samling Artists who have forged an incredible professional life is impressive and this year the score of wonderful musical talent is unlikely to disappoint.
The fourth of ENO’s contrasting Orpheus myth operas is perhaps its strongest. Philp Glass’s Orphee based on Jean Cocteau’s 1950 film is directed by Netia Jones with vivid modern black and white set designs by Lizzie Clachan. Lucy Carter is an outstanding Lighting Designer with the necessary choreography by Danielle Agami.
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.
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?
Why is Milly Forrest so important? This wonderful lyric soprano put on an interesting Church Hall performance of wide variety showing her talent at its fullest. For a 25 year old fledgling singer she showed remarkable poise, flexibility and variation of sound.
