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
Gounod’s Faust is an opera in five Acts to a French libretto by Barbier & Carre, which debuted in Paris in 1859.
April saw the opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of La Traviata under the direction of the Tony Award winning Michael Mayer. The visually beautiful Belle Epoch sets designed by Christine Jones and expertly lit by Kevin Adams formed the corner stone for all 3 Acts with subtle differences in lighting to reflect the different scenes.
It was an unexpected privilege to witness the performance of the outstanding Moldovan Violinist, now in her early forties, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto under the baton of the Lithuanian Conductor, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla. They played together like a matching glove, always outstandingly in time and complete with their musical colour, but it was Kopatchinskaja’s night.
It is outstanding that the English Touring Opera reaches more towns and cities in the UK than any other opera company. There is nothing easy in the repertoire that ETO performs (this year Elisabetta 1, Mozart’s Idomeneo and Verdi’s Macbeth, next year Mozart’s Seraglio and Kurt Weill’s The Silver Lake, A Winter’s Tale), but with all its work it brings opera to the people outside the main cities, which is hugely important and beneficial for the country as a whole.
Franz Lehar’s Merry Widow is a comedy operetta in three acts, premiered in 1905 in Vienna. The story centres round the wealthy widow, Hanna Glawari, and her lovers and admirers. The popularity of this piece has led to some of our greatest opera singers performing and recording this opera.
Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, written in 1983, is an opera in three Acts based on the life and religious convictions of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhnaten. The opera was commissioned and premiered in Stuttgart Germany and the American premiere was directed a year later in Houston by the Australian Opera Director, David Freeman. The English premiere was staged in 1985 by ENO, who now stage its new 2016 production in partnership with the LA Opera. The Egyptian and Hebrew texts are all taken from original sources, as indeed is the juggling whose source had been discovered as graffiti on the wall in an Egyptian tomb.
Cyprus is a small country with a long history and incredibly rich culture. The majority of Cyprus is still under Greek Cypriot control, although there is a large part of the island’s cultural heritage currently under Turkish occupation since July 1974. Civilisation in Cyprus goes back 10,000 years and there are indeed still signs of pre-historic permanent settlements. Cyprus has had a close relationship for more than two centuries with Greece, particularly its influences. During the Byzantine period there was also a strong Roman influence. The island was owned and controlled by the Latin state of Jerusalem, the Venetians, the Ottomans and the British and it wasn’t until 1959 that Archbishop Makarios was elected the first President of the Republic of Cyprus. As a result of the Turkish invasion in 1974, Lefkosia (formerly Nicosia) is currently the only divided capital in the world.
Most major and minor cities in Germany have an opera house that becomes the focal point of artistic development in the community. Some cities in Germany are themselves bigger than the whole country of Israel, which has a population of 6.5m of which 2.5m are Arab and 4.5m Jewish. Israel itself has its own Opera House, with the current Arts Centre being opened in 1994 after the new Israeli Opera was established in 1985.
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.
Donizetti’s opera buffa Don Pasquale opened in Paris in 1843, with a libretto mainly by Giovanni Ruffini, as well as the Composer himself. There have been many recordings of this opera, particularly more recently under the batons of Muti, Abbado, Santi and Levine, with artists such as Freni, Nucci, Bruson, Kunde, Raimondi, Florez and Netrebko taking the lead roles.
The NOS 40th Anniversary Concert was a well-rehearsed evening’s entertainment, highlighting twelve of their talented young musician’s in a varied concert featuring composers from Handel and Mozart to Bizet and Britten.
The three act opera, The Queen of Spades, by Potr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, was based on a short story by Alexander Pushkin, with a libretto by Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest. The premiere took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersberg in 1890.
La traviata had a somewhat complicated beginning. This opera – The Fallen Woman – is a Verdi opera in three acts, adapted from the novel La Dame aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas. It opened in 1853 at La Fenice in Venice.
At a time of real austerity the Stavros Niarchos Foundation have contributed over €500m to a brand new cultural centre, which includes a 1,400 seater Greek National Opera auditorium, as well as 210,000 square metres of national park. The cultural centre was completed and donated to the Greek state in 2017 and now stands as a beacon to the metropolitan cultural heritage of Greece and a global architectural landmark.
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Engelbert Humperdinck was born in 1854 and was recognised as a disciple of Wagner. His most famous composition was the opera Hansel and Gretel, which had its World Premiere in Weimar, Germany in 1893, under the baton of Richard Strauss. It was an overwhelming success and even to this day, the sugar-coated musical sounds are sweet to the ear.
Nine months ago I reported on the opening of Barry Kosky’s new take on Carmen. It was unlike anything seen before at the ROH and at many times was visually stunning. However, the problem is that despite some stunning scenes, including a 20 foot black dress train (both long and wide!) for Carmen in the final Act, the production overall lacks warmth in the heat of the Spanish sun and indeed it is cold in its interaction between principals. The constant streaming across the stage steps by principals and chorus does not add to the village or factory atmosphere, as was required by Bizet. However interesting the production appeared to be, it was in fact the collage of the scenes that provided the interest, rather than the visual impact throughout the evening.
Giuseppe Verdi’s premiere of the opera Simon Boccanegra in Venice in 1857 was not a popular success. Indeed it was not until a major revision unveiled in 1881 in Milan, that Boccanegra finally became part of the standard operatic repertoire – a quarter of a century after its opening.
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.
