The Passion of Opera

Over the past two weeks I had the wonderful opportunity to return to Vienna, where I studied in 2011 and posted many of the reviews on this blog. While I was there, I attended three more operas at the Wiener Staatsoper, bringing my standing room total there to 29 operas (and one Volksoper opera - for 30 standing room operas in Vienna): Puccini's La boheme , Massenet's Werther , and Strauss' Elektra . All three were excellent, particularly the latter two. Upon my return to the United States last week, I immediately was at a performance of the revised version of Philip Glass' Appomattox . This performance was also quite interesting for me, as it is the second Glass opera I have seen and very different from his Satyagraha  in London. As a bonus: a quick review of a concert by The Tenors (formerly The Canadian Tenors) performing one man down. Reviews will be shorter than a standard review, but the performances raised a few interesting points I want to record. Vienna ...

Just as in the Wiener Staatsoper's recent production of  Il barbiere di Siviglia  this production of Donizetti's  L'elisir d'amore  goes back to the basic, classic style of  bel canto  performance, stripping away many of the inventions and conventions developed in the past several decades and returning to the basis of the art form. The production of  Barbiere  was certainly funny, but eschewed hilarity in favor of what felt like a very pure representation of  bel canto  melodrama. Synopsis & general information:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'elisir_d'amore L'elisir d'amore | Gaetano Donizetti Dirigent | Marco Armiliato Nach der Regie von | Otto Schenk Ausstattung | Jürgen Rose Chorleitung | Martin Schebesta Adina | Aleksandra Kurzak Nemorino | Stephen Costello Belcore | Marco Caria Doktor Dulcamara | Adam Plachetka Giannetta | Jeanine De Bique Ein Trompeter | Konras Monsberger Diener de...

  This production of a relatively less well-known opera by Leoš Janáček was, unfortunately, probably the most disappointing that I've seen at the Staatsoper. Some of my colleagues have disagreed with me about the quality of the production. I admit that I might have been listening to the cast on an off night or that I may have "missed" the intention of the production or the singers. No review is flawless, but an off night, while not a representation of singer's abilities, still makes for a poor night at the opera. Missing the point of a production may be a failure to understand, but as a well versed operagoer if a reviewer misses the point or fails to understand, it is likely the production is failing to communicate to the audience as a whole. General information & synopsis:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KáťaKabanová Cast: Káťa Kabanová | Leoš Janáček Dirigent | Franz Welser-Möst Regie | André Engel Bühne | Nicky Rieti Kostüme | Chantal de La...

This post is just to address the overall arc of the Wiener Staatsoper's Fall 2011 production of Der Ring des Nibelungen . These observations didn't feel appropriate to describe in any of the reviews of the individual operas, but a review of the cycle as a whole would be incomplete without them. The set design was very mediocre. In the first three operas of the cycle it tended toward the abstract without actually going all the way down the rabbit hole. It is respectable that designers want to get away from the massive, grand sets and costumes with horns and metal bras. I imagine that there is a feeling among designers that they just can't top a "period" Ring set and that this well is dry. Nonetheless, if the decision is to go abstract, then full abstraction is probably requisite, rather than trying to make a literal interpretation feel abstract. This just leads to a sense that things were left out or skimped upon. Perhaps the greatest failing in the first three...

After having waiting 20 hours and witnessing 18 hours of opera over two weeks, I have finally finished the Wiener Staatsoper's production of Wagner's  Der Ring des Nibelungen . I will finish up my own cycle of four reviews by dedicating this post to  Götterdämmerung . It is well worth making general observations about the production of the Cycle as a whole (though some of these have slipped in already), particularly on account of the orchestra, but I will do this in a separate post. First:  Götterdämmerung . General information & synopsis:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Götterdämmerung Cast: Christian Thielemann | Dirigent Sven-Eric Bechtolf | Regie Rolf Glittenberg | Bühne Marianne Glittenberg | Kostüme Thomas Lang | Chorleitung Stephen Gould | Siegfried Markus Eiche | Gunther Eric Halfvarson/Attila Jun | Hagen Tomasz Konieczny | Alberich Linda Watson | Brünnhilde Caroline Wenborne | Gutrune Janina Baechle | Waltraute ...