Ultz‘s opening image for Martin Duncan‘s production announces itself without ceremony: a Turkish crescent on a blazing field, the geometry of civilizational conflict made literal, kitsch flirting with provocation. But…
NORMA | Bayerische Staatsoper
There is no opera that punishes imprecision more ruthlessly than Norma. Every exposed line, every phrase of cantabile over the slow chromatic harmonies Bellini stretches beneath his priestess, demands absolute…
L’AGAMENNONE | Bühnen Bern
Sometimes a review is easy to write because you leave the theatre with a head full of melodies, unforgettable voices, and moments you already know you’ll remember for years. And…
MOZART / ZEMLINSKY | Orchestre National de France
Alexander Zemlinsky spent most of his career in the slipstream of more celebrated composers, and La Petite Sirène — the symphonic fantasy he wrote in 1902–03 as a coded autobiography…
VERDI | Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden
The Verdi Requiem had already been heard once in Paris this season — Gianandrea Noseda conducted it in March with the Zurich forces — which made Friday’s performance at the…
LULU | Staatstheater Nürnberg
My first memory of Lulu is not operatic but pop-musical. Born into a household where British pop was in full swing, my point of reference was Pandora’s Box by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,…
MACBETH | Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova
The first of three operas written by Giuseppe Verdi, based on Shakespeare’s plays, returns to Genoa, in a musically successful and scenically more contradictory production. The opera was composed in…
AIDA | Teatro Massimo di Palermo
There are opera houses you visit.And then there are opera houses you dream about for years before finally stepping inside. Coming to Palermo and discovering the Teatro Massimo was a…
DER ROSENKAVALIER | Wiener Staatsoper
To hear and see this opera here makes more sense than anywhere else in the world – save perhaps Dresden – because this is where it happens, and where it…
I PURITANI | Teatro Regio Torino
Some theaters become familiar over time.And then there are theaters that slowly become part of your opera life. Before even talking about I Puritani, I really need to once again…