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Opéra Magazine's vocal 'pick of the month' ('coup de coeur') for November 2024.

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The November issue of France's Opéra Magazine finally turned up in the post the other day. This month's favourite recording is Carlo Vistoli's Vivaldi album, Sacro furore , featuring the Stabat Mater and other sacred works, interspersed with instrumental numbers, on Harmonia Mundi. Georg Kallweit conducts the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. The reviewer writes that this album 'confirms the eminent place he occupies, today, in the rich constellation of countertenors.' They give it the first of this month's 'Diamond' awards. I think if you root around you can probably find all of the album on YT . They give a second ' Diamant ' to Bruno de Sá's Mille Affetti: Opera and Sacred Arias , which this time 'confirms he is one of the most exceptional performers of the baroque repertoire of the beginning of this century.' Jaroslaw Thiel conducts the Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, on Erato, and again, I think you can find it all online. One 'da
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Benjamin - Picture a day like this, at the Opéra Comique in Paris

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Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday October 30 2024 An edited version of t his post will be published on Parterre.com Conductor: George Benjamin. Production, sets and lighting: Marie-Christine Soma, Daniel Jeanneteau. Costumes: Marie La Rocca. Videos: Hicham Berrada. Woman: Marianne Crebassa. Zabelle: Anna Prohaska. Lover 1/Composer: Beate Mordal. Lover 2/Composer's assistant: Cameron Shahbazi. Artisan/collector: John Brancy. Actors: Matthieu Baquey, Lisa Grandmottet, Eulalie Rambaud. Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Photos: © Jean-Louis Fernandez My first opera of the new season in Paris, after kicking off in Brussels with Kris Defoort’s thought-provoking The Day of our Singing , was another nearly-new work, totally new to me: Sir George Benjamin’s Picture a day like this . Like Benjamin’s much-admired Written on Skin , Picture a day like this has (like all his operas, in fact) a libretto by Martin Crimp, was first performed at the Aix Festival (in this case in 2023), and ha
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Kris Defoort - The Time of our Singing, at La Monnaie in Brussels

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La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday October 27, 2024 An edited version of t his post will be published on Parterre.com Conductor: Kwamé Ryan. Production: Ted Huffman. Sets: Johannes Schütz. Costumes: Astrid Klein. Lighting: Bernd Purkrabek. Video: Pierre Martin. Choreography: Alan Barnes. Delia Daley: Claron McFadden. William Daley: Mark S. Doss. David Strom: Simon Bailey. Jonah: Levy Sekgapane. Joey: Peter Brathwaite. Ruth: Abigail Abraham. Lisette Soer: Lilly Jørstad. Robert Rider: Hervé Loka Sombo. La Monnaie Chamber Orchestra. Jazz Ensemble: Robin Verheyen, Lander Gyselinck, Nicolas Thys, Hendrik Lasure. Equinox Children's Choir under Zeno Popescu. Photos: Ⓒ Bernd Uhlig As I missed La Monnaie’s Siegfried because I was still sunbathing in Greece, and Paris’s Butterfly because I couldn’t be bothered, my new season starts with three new works - new to me at any rate. Later this week, at the Opéra Comique, I’ll discover George Benjamin’s Picture a day like this . Later this year, Mikael
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Opéra Magazine's operatic 'pick of the month' ('coup de coeur') for September and October 2024.

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Back from my summer holidays, I found two issues of Opéra Magazine  waiting in the post. Their 'pick-of-the-month' recording for September is Huw Montague Rendall's recital, Contemplation , to which they award one of their 'Diamond' accolades. They say it's a ' coup de maître ' of a kind rarely encountered on disc. 'How long is it since we heard such an extraordinarily successful first recital?' It includes works by Thomas, Gounod, Korngold, Mahler, Britten, Duparc and more, and also involves soprano Elisabeth Boudreault and three boy trebles when required. The whole album is available on YT . They also give one of their 'Diamonds' to bass Luigi De Donato's Polifemo recital, with Polyphemus-related works by Händel, Aliberti, Porpora and others. Again, The whole album is available on  YT . In October, their favourite, again with a 'Diamond', is György Vashegyi's new recording of the eighty-year-old Rameau's last master
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Rossini - Ermione

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Vitrifrigo Arena, Pesaro, Saturday August 17, 2024 Conductor: Michele Mariotti. Production: Johannes Erath. Sets: Heike Scheele. Costumes: Jorge Jara. Video: Bibi Abel. Lighting: Fabio Antoci. Ermione: Anastasia Bartoli. Andromaca: Victoria Yarovaya. Pirro Enea Scala. Oreste: Juan Diego Flórez. Pilade Antonio Mandrillo. Fenicio : Michael Mofidian. Cleone: Martiniana Antonie. Cefisa: Paola Leguisamón. Attalo: Tianxuefei Sun. Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso. Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI. Photos: Amati Bacciardi Now we have a dog, holidays in Greece involve an August drive across Italy from Mont Blanc, passing close to Pesaro during the festival, to Ancona for a night ferry to Patras. As, to my mind,  Ermione is one of Rossini's greatest works, yet not an easy one to catch, and the cast looked promising, this year I bought tickets, brushed up my Racine, and found myself in the Vitrifrigo arena on a Saturday night. This venue really is a sports stadium. It was probably
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1,000,000 page views

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Today, July 17 2024, this blog topped 1 million page views. I started the blog in 2007, but the posts go back before then to May 2003. The first post was about a performance of Jenufa at the Châtelet , in Stéphane Braunschweig's still-memorable production. In all, there are now 546 posts on the blog, not counting this one. Things are about to quieten down for the summer of course, but this year I've decided to stop off in Pesaro on the way to Greece, so there should be a new post in August, all being well. The blog goes on.
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Spontini - La Vestale, at the Bastille in Paris

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ONP Bastille, Paris, Monday July 8 2024. Conductor: Bertrand de Billy. Production: Lydia Steier. Sets: Etienne Pluss. Costumes: Katharina Schlipf. Lighting: Valerio Tiberi. Julia: Elza van den Heever. Licinius: Michael Spyres. La Grande Vestale: Eve-Maud Hubeaux. Cinna: Julien Behr. Le Souverain Pontife: Jean Teitgen. Le Chef des Aruspices, un consul: Floren Mbia. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. All production photos: Guergana Damianova/ONP Last year, the ever-excellent Palazzetto Bru Zane issued a new recording, under Christophe Rousset and with a strong case, of La Vestale . As it's considered a historically important work, I dutifully listened, more than once, but it didn't click at the time. Still, when it popped up in the Paris Opera's season, in a brand new production (albeit by Lydia Steier - not exactly, based on her Salome , a positive pointer), I bought tickets. I'm glad I did because, despite some misgivings I'll outline below, having
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