Plenty for our viewing in the week of July 20th
To start, two Barbers of Seville
So you can relax with Rossini.
From Monday 20 July Glyndebourne screens its 2016 The Barber of Seville on YouTube. The opera will be available until Monday 26 July. Trailer here.
For discussion of Rossini and this marvelous opera, go to our blog from last year here . Or our earlier meeting with the opera, here.
And for a contrast, you can see the Met’s 2014 Barber of Seville on Tuesday. That production, Bachtrack wrote, ‘has just the right amount of comedy to keep audiences laughing without degenerating into too much silliness and slapstick’. .
Glyndebourne’s promises plenty of silliness and slapstick, a crazy presentation of a pretty silly plot – ‘suffused with Spanish colour and warmth, with just a hint of the surreal’.
Danielle de Niese is Rosina, and Alessandro Corbelli her guardian. (Corbelli, veteran of Rossini comic roles, was the ugly stepfather in the Met’s La Cenerentola last week.) The production’s Spanish art themes please the Guardian. But there’s an interesting reflection from this reviewer, that the production ‘is less concerned with exploring these human situations from within and more focused on imposing motifs and images from without.’ However, ‘the talents of the cast distract us when the drama loses its way.’ It's a ‘triumphant celebration of Rossini’s musical genius. ‘ said the Independent. . Bachtrack was less glowing.
And a formidable Faust
Newly available from ROH is their 2019 performance of their 2004 production of Gounod’s Faust. This one has Michael Fabiano as an elegant Faust and Erwin Schrott as a devilishly good Méphistophélès. Listen here to the account of the opera and its characters from those playing them. . Streaming from 19 July to Friday 31st our time.. Details and link here .
It’s a David McVicar production, setting the tale of the deal with the devil in the ‘debauchery, lasciviousness and hypocrisy of the Belle-Époque France of Gounod’s later years’ said Operawire. The reviewer disliked the chaotic adaption of the original production, but agreed with everyone that the leads were splendid. Guardian loved it. Here’s Bachtrack.
Royal Opera House has a new program of online discussions and recordings for the ‘culturally curious – check it out here .
Theatre with some Opera
National Theatre Live is streaming their acclaimed production of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 psychodrama, Amadeus, probably known to most from the 1984 film, setting to Mozart’s music the dramatic (and almost certainly factually false) jealously and rivalry between young musical prodigy and court composer Salieri.
Reviews of the play were ecstatic. The orchestra is part of the drama, the images part of the story. ‘hallucinatory production’. Guardian called it 'an epic piece of music-theatre.'
Trailers and lots of information here . It screens from 17 July to Friday 24 July (our dates).
'A new future for opera'? Breaking Glass
Want something totally different, experimental, very Australian?
Here are four new short operas, all fascinating, all by Australian women. I’ve just found that ‘Breaking Glass’ is available online, filmed as the world premiere of a quartet of new operas the music world had been looking forward to before everything shut down. Saturday Paper reviewed it in March.
These operas came from collaboration between Sydney Conservatorium’s Composing Women professional development program and the Sydney Chamber Opera (SCO). Carriageworks and Sydney Chamber Opera cosponsored the filming. They are 'inspired by poetry, literature, mythology, and a rare species of Australian bird'. Review and details in this Conversation piece. It's a fascinating account, concluding that ‘all aspects of this production were outstanding’.
Click here to read more and stream the four operas. ‘With works that open an expanse of possibilities in the form, Breaking Glass is a new future for opera.’
At the Met (dates are for Melbourne)
Met Stars Live in Concert – details here. There has been considerable detail on the Met's new initiative to bring us performances and ask at this crisis time for the arts, that we pay for them. (Not much.) This pay per view series of concerts is ‘featuring opera’s greatest stars performing live via satellite from striking locations across Europe and the U.S.' First is Sunday, July 19, our time, with 'superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann singing a program of show-stopping arias from the ornate Polling Abbey outside Munich, Germany.’ His interesting program is here.
Here’s how it works. Special note: beat the time zone problem! You can buy tickets from now, and after the event, you can access the performance as many times as you’d like, on-demand, for 12 days, using the same access link you received in your confirmation email.
And – thankyou to the Met - their free livestreaming of past performances continues!
To start our next week - Monday, July 20 Puccini’s La Bohème Not another Bohème! but this one - from 1982, is Franco Zeffirelli’s staging with Teresa Stratas and José Carreras (above), Renata Scotto, Richard Stilwell, and James Morris, conducted by James Levine. NYTimes felt the production had already lost it innocence.
Tuesday, July 21 it's that other, earlier, much more traditional Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Starring Isabel Leonard, who glories in Rossini in a way Danielle at Glyndebourne doesn't. Reviews were all about Leonard, who now ‘has come into her own as a leading star of the Met’s stage (and many others, for that matter).’ To understand why, listen to her singing "Una voce poco fa" here . (On Friday you can see Leonard 7 years earlier at her debut at the Met.)
Wednesday, July 22 Wagner’s Tannhäuser Starring Éva Marton, Tatiana Troyanos, Richard Cassilly, in 1982. It’s a huge opera and needs a brilliant cast – here’s NYTimes review. More detail in this review of the recording.
Thursday, July 23 Verdi’s Macbeth Željko Lučić is Macbeth, this one of his earlier triumphs (2008), with Maria Guleghina as Lady Macbeth. On this towering opera and a 2014 production we viewed, go to our website on opera and Shakespeare here.
Friday, July 24 Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette It’s 2007 and a young Netrebko and Alagna play the teenage lovers, pretty well, according to most reviews. Here's Bachtrack. (NYTimes tells the tale of the many Romeos.) Starring Anna Netrebko, Roberto Alagna, conducted by Plácido Domingo. . The Met as well as the stars, are in transition, and one reviewer remarks presciently on the emphasis on packaging attractive opera. Here's another reason to watch it: the Times review reports that ‘making her company debut with remarkable aplomb as Stéphano was Isabel Leonard, a young Juilliard graduate who sang with the assurance of one who feels completely at home on the stage, wielding an easy mezzo that went up from an amber-colored lower register to an impressive, sopranolike top. It is hard to make a splash in a pants role in a long opera on a night when Anna Netrebko is singing, but Ms. Leonard did.’ Enter Isabel! I hope you watched her Rosina on Tuesday.
More on Gounod and this opera in our Shakespeare series here. (Did you buy a ticket to Kaufmann in concert on Sunday? One item was the lovely aria “Ah! lève-toi, soleil” from this opera.)
Saturday, July 25 Verdi’s Falstaff It’s been called Verdi’s greatest work and was his last opera. Lots about it on our 2018 website.
This 1992 production has all the sparkle you want. Watch the finale here. That's because it stars Mirella Freni, Barbara Bonney, Marilyn Horne – oh yes, and Paul Plishka. What a lineup for the Merry Wives of Windsor! Bass Plishka plays the gross knight splendidly, but this is a very special gathering of women - Meg Page (Susan Graham), Alice Ford (Mirella Freni) working whiles with Mistress Quickly (the wonderful Marilyn Horne) and young Nanetta (Barbara Bonney. NYTimes commented - way back then!-, ‘It would have been very easy, given contemporary operatic tastes, to turn the plot's ridicule of Falstaff into a campy farce. This is, after all, an opera about excess…But Mr. Plishka gave the role an almost touchingly human quality… This performance found an unusual balance between sympathy and irony, physical exuberance and charm.’
Sunday, July 26 Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Starring Renée Fleming, Christine Schäfer, Susan Graham, 2010. Fleming first played the Marschallin in 2000, and she performed 70 times. It was her exit role in 2017. There’s a thinkpiece about the role and the diva here. About the opera our session is here: and more on a post a fortnight ago.
What a week! If you're starved for Puccini, wait for our next week, which starts with The Girl of the Golden West, starring three wonderful voices.
Monday, July 27 Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West Starring Eva-Maria Westbroek, Jonas Kaufmann, and Željko Lučić, conducted by Marco Armiliato. From October 27, 2018.