After the triumph of Elektra and the less conclusive venture of Ă–dipus und die Sphinx, Hofmannsthal felt the need to step back from tragedy and attempt a genre more accessible…
MACBETH | Bayerische Staatsoper
Verdi was thirty-three years old. The great trilogy did not yet exist. Rigoletto, Trovatore, Traviata — none of it. And yet here he was, producing this: an opera about guilt…
DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES | Teatro Regio Torino
It is noteworthy that Poulenc’s masterpiece has enjoyed a growing presence on Italian stages in recent years. After Rome and Venice, Turin has now presented “Dialogues des CarmĂ©lites” for the…
BILLY BUDD | Opéra National de Lyon
Presented for the first time in its history at the OpĂ©ra de Lyon, Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten is staged by the company’s director, Richard Brunel. It is no small…
IL TROVATORE | Opéra de Monte-Carlo
There is something quietly miraculous about Il Trovatore. Dismissed by snobs and adored by the masses, Verdi’s most melodically concentrated opera has always thrived on a certain paradox: the more…
Elīna Garanča | Opera de Monte-Carlo
Concluding a refined and significantly stimulating season, the Monte-Carlo Opera presented an operatic recital with orchestra by Latvian mezzo-soprano ElÄ«na GaranÄŤa. She is undoubtedly one of the most charismatic and authoritative…
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE | Oper Frankfurt
Oper Frankfurt opens the early spring season with a revival of Katharina Thoma’s 2020 production. The staging is marked by Johannes Leiacker’s pared‑back set design, the same throughout all three…
DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES | Opéra de Marseille
A new production of Dialogues des CarmĂ©lites always raises the same fundamental question: how to reconcile the work’s metaphysical density with the radical simplicity it demands on stage. In Marseille,…
LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN | Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Few works demand such a precarious equilibrium between fantasy and coherence as Les contes d’Hoffmann. Too much caricature, and the piece collapses into vulgarity; too much restraint, and its surreal…
IL TROVATORE | Hamburgische Staatsoper
Il trovatore is, perhaps more than any other Verdi opera, a work of extremes: structurally fragmented, dramatically implausible at times, yet propelled by an almost unmatched musical urgency. It lives…