We left at the interval...

ONP Bastille, Monday May 2 2016 Conductor: Nicola Luisotti. Production: Claus Guth. Sets and costumes: Christian Schmidt. Lighting: Olaf Winter. Il Duca di Mantova: Michael Fabiano. Rigoletto: Quinn Kelsey. Gilda: Olga Peretyatko. Sparafucile: Rafal Siwek. Maddalena: Vesselina Kasarova. Giovanna: Isabelle Druet. Il Conte di Monterone: Mikhail Kolelishvili. Marullo: Michal Partyka. Matteo Borsa: Christophe Berry. Il Conte di Ceprano: Tiago Matos. La Contessa: Andreea Soare. Paggio della Duchessa: Adriana Gonzalez. Usciere di corte: Florent Mbia. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Verdi It's always frustrating when, as sometimes happens, the efforts of an excellent cast are undermined by the distancing effects of an unsuccessful production. So it was this week at the Bastille, with this Rigoletto - or so it seemed to me, at any rate. As also quite often happens, the initial idea was reasonable enough but unconvincingly carried through. As the opera began...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday May 18 2014 Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Production: Robert Carsen, reprised by Gayral Christophe. Sets: Radu Boruzescu. Costumes: Miruna Boruzescu. Lighting: Robert Carsen, Peter Van Praet. Il Duca di Mantova: Arturo Chacón-Cruz. Rigoletto: Dimitri Platanias. Gilda: Simona Šaturová. Sparafucile: Ain Anger. Maddalena: Sara Fulgoni. Giovanna: Carole Wilson. Il Conte di Monterone: Carlo Cigni. Marullo: Jean-Luc Ballestra. Matteo Borsa: Roberto Covatta. Il Conte di Ceprano: Laurent Kubla. La Contessa di Ceprano: Yvette Bonner. Usciere di Corte: Gerard Lavalle. Orchestra and men's chorus of La Monnaie.  Robert Carsen’s production of Rigoletto has been around before arriving in Brussels, so it will be familiar to many. I’d seen parts of it on TV myself. It sets the work in a wine-dark circus ring, and once you’ve said that the concept is fairly easy to imagine. In the Brussels context, the start seemed unpromisingly déjà vu . Not Carsen’s fault, but las...

Státní Opera, Prague, Thursday April 5 2012 Conductor: František Drs. Production : Karel Jernek. Sets: Z. Kolář. Costumes: O. Filipi. Rigoletto: Martin Bárta. The Duke of Mantua: Rafael Alvarez. Gilda: Marina Vyskvorkina. Sparafucile: Ladislav Mlejnek. Maddalena: Andrea Kalivodová. Giovanna: Sylva Čmugrová. Monterone: František Zahradníček. Marullo: Jiří Brückler. Borsa: Lubomír Havlák. Orchestra and Chorus of the Prague State Opera. When I found I had an evening free in Prague I hopped on to the Internet hoping there’d be some Janáček at the Národní (after three days there, I’m still in the mood for accents) but the only opera available that night was Rigoletto at the Státní. Oh well, I thought, at least the orchestra and voices will be good. In the event, it was a problematic evening; and to avoid upsetting my Czech friends, I decided I’d say there was probably a ‘flu pandemic in the house. It didn’t affect the secondary parts. Maddalena, looking very much like Gina Lollob...