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Showing posts from February, 2019

Berlioz - Les Troyens

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ONP Bastille, Tuesday February 12 2019 Conductor: Philippe Jordan. Production and sets: Dmitri Tcherniakov. Costumes: Elena Zaytseva. Lighting: Gleb Filshtinsky. Cassandre: Stéphanie d'Oustrac. Ascagne: Michèle Losier. Hécube: Véronique Gens. Énée: Brandon Jovanovich. Chorèbe: Stéphane Degout. Panthée: Christian Helmer. Le Fantôme d'Hector: Thomas Dear. Priam: Paata Burchuladze. Un Capitaine Grec: Jean-Luc Ballestra. Helenus: Jean-François Marras. Polyxène: Sophie Claisse. Didon: Ekaterina Semenchuk. Anna: Aude Extrémo. Iopas: Cyrille Dubois. Hylas: Bror Magnus Tødenes. Narbal: Christian Van Horn. Deux Capitaines troyens: Jean-Luc Ballestra, Tomislav Lavoie. Mercure: Bernard Arrieta. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Talking about Les Troyens the other day, a colleague remarked that none of the Paris Opera’s new productions under Stéphane Lissner’s management have been outstandingly successful. As usual (though the phenomenon continues to puzzle me) t

Ponchielli - La Gioconda

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La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday February 10 2019 Conductor: Paolo Carignani. Production: Olivier Py. Sets & Costumes: Pierre-André Weitz. Lighting: Bertrand Killy. La Gioconda: Hui He. Laura Adorno: Szilvia Vörös. Enzo Grimaldo: Stefano La Colla. Barnaba: Scott Hendricks. La Cieca: Ning Liang. Alvise Badoero: Jean Teitgen. Isèpo: Roberto Covatta. Zuàne /Un pilota: Bertrand Dunby. Un Barnabotto/Una voce: Bernard Giovani. Un cantore: René Laryea. Una voce: Alejandro Fonté. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. MM Academy & La Monnaie's Children's and Youth Chorus. As the suave ‘cello solo turns into a quartet and the oboe then joins in, you think to yourself “Wow, I don't recall  La Gioconda being so good.” Shortly afterwards, and for the next three hours or so, you realise why you’d forgotten. People sometimes say it’s a singers’ opera and that you need an outstanding cast to make it worthwhile. But I’m pretty certain that if you did have an outstanding cast

Alessandro Scarlatti - Il Primo Omicidio ovvero Caino

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Alessandro Scarlatti - Il Primo Omicidio ovvero Caino  ONP Garnier, Tuesday January 29 2018 Conductor: René Jacobs. Production, sets, costumes and lighting: Romeo Castellucci. Caino: Kristina Hammarström. Abele: Olivia Vermeulen. Eva: Birgitte Christensen. Adamo: Thomas Walker. Voce di Dio: Benno Schachtner. Voce di Lucifero: Robert Gleadow. B’Rock Orchestra. Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine, ONP Children’s Choir. Wikipedia lists over 60 operas by Alessandro Scarlatti, none of which I've ever come across in a theatre over the past 40 years. Nevertheless, in co-production with Palermo, the Paris Opera decided to stage one of his oratorios: Il Primo Omicidio . The result didn’t confirm the wisdom of the choice. While Händel’s oratorios might make some dramatic sense (though he, too, wrote plenty of operas), Scarlatti's score is more contemplative - I might even say more religious. Jacobs is sometimes criticised for taking liberties for the sake of theatricality but did littl