Tabla de contenidos para November 2023 en Opera Now

It feels as if there is always something to celebrate at the moment in opera – away from arts cuts, the remarkable number of varied, genredefying performances every month that are made known to me reflect the dedication of so many to push boundaries and preconceptions around opera. This month, we introduce an ‘off the beaten path’ opera review – aimed at showcasing more productions done differently. I hope it will provide a space to celebrate and explore new opera, those pushing boundaries and encouraging different audiences. It comes following 10 days that I spent in the US – travelling to Philadelphia, Washington and New York to witness first-hand the companies and operas that I have spent many years reading about and streaming on YouTube. Particularly remarkable was to see…

The Royal Opera House Orchestra has taken what the Musicians’ Union (MU) is describing as ‘action short of strike’ as part of a campaign to have their pay rate restored following a pay cut during the pandemic. Members of the orchestra wore yellow ‘#FairPay’ t-shirts instead of their usual concert dress for a broadcast performance of Das Rheingold at the Covent Garden venue. The action is part of an ongoing campaign, with further action planned. During the pandemic, the orchestra took a 10% pay cut to help the company through lockdown closures, but they are now calling for their pay to be restored to pre-pandemic levels. This latest action follows the orchestra’s vote earlier this year in favour of potential industrial action.Jamie Pullman, the MU’s regional organiser for London, said:…

British soprano Carolyn Sampson returns to the opera stage this month after an extended period of time away from the scene. For some, stepping right back into a role like Créuse in Charpentier’s Médée under the baton of Simon Rattle might feel like an intimidating first performance back, but Sampson’s excitement was clear: ‘I think it’s going to be fun. I mean, for me, it was one of those things where everything falls into place. It’s a wonderful conductor-director, my colleagues as well, and Berlin Staatsoper … it’s such an amazing team of people that I respect and really want to work with.’ The last time Sampson forayed into the world of opera was in 2017 when she took on Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with Scottish Opera, a role that…

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden STAGING MUSIC The curtain rises on an abstract shape covered in oil-cloths, like a Henry Moore reclining figure wrapped by Christo. As you wonder what it is, no-nonsense stagehands come to pull the wrappings off – and it’s the charred remains of the World Ash Tree, seriously in decline. Rhinemaidens pop out from its hollows (no sign of the Rhine, no swimming to be had). And very slowly an emaciated, old and fragile woman shuffles like a risen mummy from some ancient tomb across the stage. Shockingly naked. She is Erda, mother earth; and like the Tree, she’s in a bad way. But she’s central to the Rheingold that begins the new Royal Opera Ring: a cycle planned to unfold between now and 2027. Antonio…

Opera National du Rhin, Strasbourg, France MUSIC STAGING The close relationship between conductor Aziz Shokhakimov and his Strasbourg orchestra is well-documented. Everywhere in this Strasbourg performance of Rimsky’s The Tale of Tsar Saltan, the players bent to his will, creating micro-worlds of sound, differentiating between the various planes of reality onstage. Each year, Shokhakimov conducts one production with his orchestra at Strasbourg’s beautiful opera house (last year, it was the French premiere of Braunfels’ Die Vögel). When I spoke with Shokhakimov, he was about to conduct Carmen and was looking forward also to Lucia in Paris (with Javier Camarena and Brenda Rae), a repertoire not immediately associated with him. He has known the tale from childhood: he emphasised that Tcherniakov’s take is decidedly dark. It is also genius. From Tcherniakov’s…

A new digital compilation allows you a taste of Scotto’s artistry. Seven operas plus Verdi’s Requiem are featured in extracts as well as single arias, mainly from an early recital. Scotto’s career is wellrepresented, from La traviata, the first opera she performed onstage, to Nabucco, essayed only in the studio. The studio Traviata here is from 1980, under Muti, and finds Scotto in meticulous form, if at times vocally pressed at that stage of her career. Her Bohème Mimì is exquisitely phrased and the surrounding cast, including Alfredo Kraus and Sherrill Milnes, works effectively under Levine’s baton. Her Nedda in Pagliacci is also elegantly voiced until pressed, with Muti again aiding and abetting. Single arias range from Cherubini to Boito, and include a slightly unsmiling Rosina in Il barbiere di…

Performance runs starting in November and running to December 2023. Listings are in alphabetical order by city within each country heading. M = Matinee performance. Comprehensive Worldwide Listings are available at www.operabase.com UNITED KINGDOM GLASGOW SCOTTISH NATIONAL OPERA scottishopera.org.uk Theatre Royal, Glasgow Il barbiere di Siviglia | Rossini INVERNESS: NOV 16, 18 EDINBURGH: NOV 03, 05M, 08, 11 ABERDEEN: NOV 23, 25 Conductor Stuart Stratford Stage director Thomas Michael Allen Set designer Simon Higlett Lighting designer Mark Jonathan CAST Il Conte d’Almaviva Anthony Gregory Don Bartolo David Stout Rosina Simone McIntosh Figaro Samuel Dale Johnson LEEDS OPERA NORTH operanorth.co.uk Falstaff | Verdi NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE: OCT 31, NOV 02 NOTTINGHAM: NOV 07, 11M SALFORD: NOV 15, 18M Conductor Martin Pickard / Garry Walker  Stage director Olivia Fuchs Set designer Leslie Travers Costume designer Gabrielle Dalton…

Congratulations on such an exciting year. What can you tell us about your approach as a composer to writing for voice and opera? Thank you. I love collaboration, which is inevitably a large part of composing opera and for voices. With this in mind, it is crucial to have a good team in the ‘creative room’, not just with the necessary skillset and imagination, but also with personalities that will work well together and enjoy learning from each other. If this is all in place, whatever story is being told will be that much more special for the creators and consequently that much more magical for audiences. Tell us about your commissions for the Oxford International Song Festival It has been a wonderful privilege being associate composer at Oxford International…

‘So, you’re off to see Mr Callas,’ joked a friend I met on my way to interview Tom Volf, director of the award winning documentary Maria by Callas, on the eve of the premiere of his eagerly awaited production of Norma at the Herodes Atticus Theatre in Athens. I laughed, but on reflection his remark is not far off the mark. For during the past decade, Tom Volf’s life has been entirely devoted to the Greek diva. Apart from his gripping film, he is also the author of three books on Callas, conceiver and producer of the show Letters and Memoirs starring Monica Bellucci, president of the Maria Callas Foundation and director of Callas–Paris, 1958 – presenting recently rediscovered concert footage remastered of Callas’ 1958 Paris recital. It arrives in…

MARTINŮ The Greek Passion New to Salzburg this year was Martinů’s The Greek Passion, a work originally turned down by Covent Garden in 1957 and extensively revised by the composer before it was finally premiered in Zurich in 1961. It was this second version – widely considered the better of the two, with some 70 per cent of the score new, and far less spoken dialogue than the first – that was performed at the Felsenreitschule. Martinů took as a subject – which could scarcely be more timely – the eponymous novel (also published as Christ Recrucified) by the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, set in the fictional village of Lycovrissi during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22. When local priest Grigoris hands out the parts for the Passion play, he gives…

DEBUSSY Pelléas et Mélisande Thanks to its uniquely breathtaking, open-air setting amid the high-desert mountains of the American Southwest, the Santa Fe Opera is able to present site-specific productions in which nature itself becomes a dramatis persona. Among the most intriguing of the 2023 summer season’s offerings was a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande by Netia Jones that envisioned Debussy’s tale of doomed love playing out against a backdrop of postapocalyptic decay: ‘nature’ here appeared to be largely confined to the vegetation visible within a mysterious glass cube or terrarium. The contrast with the evening’s light breeze and gently glowing sunset beyond the stage made its precious artificiality all the more striking. Jones, who not only directed but was responsible for the scenic, costume and projection design, reimagined Arkel’s…

Der Wald Smyth Resonus RES10324 CDs and digital Der Wald Ethel Smyth is having a welcome musical resurgence, but listening to Der Wald I’m not too sure why. The one-act opera was premiered in German in Berlin in 1902 to little interest, and gained a bit more attention at the Met the following year where it was in a double bill with Il trovatore. The orchestration is adept and often atmospheric. There is some great writing in turn for strings, brass and harp and an enjoyable duet for soprano and tenor, but nothing particularly sticks in the memory. But the libretto is unwittingly camp, and the opera comes across as posturing characters, pinned together with moments of good music. The wicked Iolanthe stumbles across a jolly peasant wedding in a…

Can you explain how Glyndebourne is funded? The festival is privately funded, we don’t get a penny of Arts Council money. The gap between the tickets and the funding is made up mostly by individuals making donations, trusts and foundations. Corporate support is minimal and we have some partnerships. Is that different from how it used to be funded? It’s always been privately funded, but there was much more corporate support in the ’70s ’80s and ’90s. We have a lot of companies who want to be associated with Glyndebourne, such as Nyetimber – a local sparkling wine which we sell – and English Woodlands, who lend us big potted plants and small potted trees for the summer. What is the approximate percentage made by ticket sales each year? Around…

Longborough Festival Opera has announced the resignation of its Executive Director Jennifer Smith after nine years in the role. Since joining in 2014 LFO has seen a turnover growth of 66%, as well as major growth within the administrative team and expansion of its educational provision. Smith moves to take up the position of Domestic Bursar at Balliol College Oxford in the late Autumn. The 2023 Gramophone Awards, held on 4 October, celebrated numerous achievements in the recording of voice and opera. The recording of Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner is this year’s recipient of the Gramophone Opera Award. Dame Felicity Lott received the Lifetime Achievement Award and Véronique Gens was named Artist of the Year. Other achievements in voice came from…

That’s the problem with statistics: they tend to be spun by the sentences we wrap around them. Take, for example, recent research published by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra apropos modernising the way live performances of classical music are presented. ‘Music students,’ we were told by the press release, ‘wanted audiences to feel free to take photographs or film clips of a concert with their phones (21 per cent).’ Translation: 79 per cent of music students – the overwhelming majority, in other words – don’t necessarily want audiences to feel free to take photographs or film clips of a concert with their phones. The RPO’s research got some traction in the classical music world by presenting some interesting new insights alongside some very old tropes. It hoisted up a whole raft…

Tête à Tête Opera Festival, The Cockpit, London MUSIC STAGING AMY BRICE Plastic Bodies When a work is described as ‘An Opera About Opera’, one might assume it would explore the history, the canon of composers, its origins, and perhaps the performance practices. Unlike Ghosts of Versailles, Capriccio, and Adriana Lecouvreur, where opera is used as a backdrop, a subject matter or a plot device, Plastic Bodies delves into the lived experiences of singers working today. It is a contemporary work that acknowledges opera as a living, evolving art form, and presents us with some of the realities of the industry that are not regularly spoken about. With that, it asks a very important question, ‘How does an industry so obsessed with the voice leave its performers without one?’ Its…

KORNGOLD Die tote Stadt Korngold’s masterpiece Die tote Stadt has recently triumphed at English National Opera, and so it happened again here, albeit in a very different production. Unlike London, Daniel Kramer’s production went all out on the Grand Guignol aspects of the story. Bereaved Paul was obviously demented and uncontrollable, yet curiously lovable despite his floral shrine and creepy model of his late wife hidden behind plastic sheeting. Marietta’s arrival referenced just about every horror movie trope imaginable as she discovered the mannequin and then lurched in panic around the room stumbling across another model, clothes, body parts and then Paul’s work tools – she had obviously seen Tosca and sensibly took a chisel, just in case. The whole dream sequence was particularly lurid as Paul left his house…

The loss of soprano Renata Scotto in August was seen by many as the end of an era, a sense that a quintessential type of artist is fading – the classic diva, grand of voice and gesture, magnetic onstage, trenchant of opinion and always perfectly presented when in public. In Scotto’s case, that meant being swathed in mink and photographed by Richard Avedon for Blackglama’s ‘What Becomes a Legend Most’ ad campaign, alongside a plethora of the 20th century’s other female icons. Scotto was one of the great post-war stars. She got her big opportunity to create a stir in 1957, when Callas supposedly cancelled a final performance of La sonnambula at the Edinburgh Festival: in fact it had been announced without her permission so she finished her contractual obligations…