What do Placido Domingo, Placido Domingo Jr., Thomas Hampson, Rene Pape, Patricia Racette, Danielle de Niese, Rod Gilfry, Daniel Montenegro, Shenyang, Denyce Graves, Dolora Zajick, Stuart Skelton, Barbara Padilla, Matthew Polenzani and Nathan Gunn do when they need a few bob?
Record an album of John Denver covers, that's what. The results are .....fascinating.
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The ultimate in site-specific productions, Tim Albery's new Peter Grimes opened on Monday night - on Aldeburgh beach, close to Britten's home.
All the action takes place on a specially-constructed decrepit boardwalk, lodged between the audience and the sea. Those who sat through the windy evening described the experience as 'unforgettable' and 'remarkable'.
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The Importance of Being Earnest - Royal Opera House, 14 June 2013 (first night)
Gerald Barry's comic masterpiece achieves two rare distinctions. Not just genuinely funny, it seems to be (rarer still) director-proof too. The Royal Opera House advertise this as the opera's "first UK staging". But with the orchestra on one side of the stage, a few plates of buns passing for scenery on the other, and the cast seemingly dressed in their own clothes, Ramin Grey's production has little to distinguish it from last year's Barbican concert version.
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Yes, it really exists. Many 'historical' Ring sites are tourist-friendly 19th century inventions, but 'Brunhildisfelsen' has been associated with the legends behind Wagner's operas since at least 1043.
It's situated on top of the Großer Feldberg mountain, near Frankfurt, where reader S took these pictures.
Here's the rock itself:
And here's the view you'd have if you decided to sleep there for a few years:
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Calixto Bieito's Fidelio opens at ENO on 25 September - and his Die Soldaten just three days before that, on 22 September in Zurich.
Fidelio has already been staged (and revived) in Munich. Die Soldaten is a brand new production of a long and complex work. So which production will get the lion's share of Bieito's personal attention?
Of course directors often delegate revivals and transfers to other people, and there's nothing wrong with that - unless the show is sold on the director's name, as all ENO productions are this season.
If ENO's strapline "Fidelio - Directed by Calixto Bieito" is currently missing a " 's assistant", now would be the time to add it.
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Fancy spending £250 on little bits of plastic?
Lego's new scale model of Sydney Opera House includes nearly 3,000 pieces and comes out in September. Measuring 11″ high, 25″ wide and 15″ deep, the kit's fiendish complexity makes it suitable for over-16s only.
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The Royal Opera House confirm they have commissioned the new opera that George Benjamin and Martin Crimp mentioned back in February.
Written on Skin was not just Benjamin's best work to date but arguably Crimp's too. Can they match it?
The new baby hasn't yet been named, but its due date is confirmed as 2018.
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With the recent delivery of four bee colonies, Vienna's Konzerthaus joins an estimated 600 beekeepers in urban Vienna, including the State Opera House.
Strangely enough, a city environment is more healthy for the insects than the countryside.Vienna's bees have access to a wide variety of city parks and gardens but aren't exposed to the harmful pesticides found in rural areas. As the Konzerthaus roof is high above the traffic, they avoid exhaust pollution too.
And if they tire of their rooftop hives, they can always lie in wait for tourists above the front door:
(© Alexander Tuma)
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Glyndebourne's Le nozze di Figaro started an hour late on Wednesday after traffic held up the van bearing the orchestra's instruments.
Of course a late start means a late finish. So the lengthy dinner interval was trimmed. And buses sped audience members to Lewes railway station as soon as the show finished. But still they watched the last train to London chug out from the platform before they could reach it.
Regular Glyndebourne-goers who've woken up in a sweat imagining just this very scenario will be delighted to hear there's a Plan B: sending the buses another half an hour up the road to Haywards Heath for the last Brighton to London train.
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If you want to hear Wagner sung in a sewage plant while grown men disguised as tadpoles writhe about the floor, then hurry to Bayreuth. For this could be your last chance to see Sebastian Baumgarten's widely-loathed production of Tannhäuser - the only Bayreuth staging I can recall to have received universally negative reviews from press and public alike.
While there is no rule as to how many times a Bayreuth production can be repeated, 5 to 8 years is typical. However Festival management have decided to axe Baumgarten's ordurous embarrassment prematurely. An extended run of Hans Neuenfels' generally-admired 'rat' Lohengrin will fill the gap.
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Chanson, microphones, theatre and yoga. Natalie Dessay discusses her future plans with SFist - and reveals that she hasn't closed the door on opera altogether:
"I only have Manon in Toulouse. After this, I don't know. In 2015, I am taking a sabbatical. I'm doing concerts, but I'll take a leave from the opera. After that, I don't know if I'll do it again, nor how. The last opera that I'm signed for is in October, after this I'm not signed on for anything."
"Until now, I didn't want to do recitals. But I discovered that I had things to express musically. In particular with French melodies and songs. I'll express myself this way. I'm coming next year to Cal Performances with Philippe Cassard, my pianist. I recorded the Debussy album with him. The program will be French and German. In the first part, Clara Schumann, Brahms, Fitzner [sic], Richard Strauss, then some Debussy, Faure, Duparc, Chausson, Chabrier. And in parallel, I'll do a lot of yoga and some theater, and sing some songs. For instance, I'll go on tour next year with Michel Legrand, and I'll do Michel Legrand songs. I'll sing with a mike, and not at all with my operatic voice. I like jazz a lot, but I'm not a jazz singer, alas. It's really a music I'd like to discover. And there's the French songs, Michel Legrand, Claude Nougaro, Maxime LeForestier."
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For now anway. Following Alexander Pereira's appointment as La Scala superintendant-designate, the Salzburg Festival have decided to boot him out as quickly as possible: September 2014. The festival's theatre head, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, will take over the 2015 and 2016 seasons "in keeping with the committee’s existing budgetary guidelines". Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler will take over Pereira's commercial responsibilities for this period. A new artistic director for the 2017 and future seasons will be sought as soon as possible.
This leaves the path clear for the innovative Markus Hinterhäuser, a popular interim director during the season prior to Pereira's arrival. Hinterhauser's current contract as head of the Wiener Festwochen conveniently expires in 2016.
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Alzira, Chelsea Opera - Royal Festival Hall, 2 June 2013
Having been primed for a forgettable apprentice work, I was surprised just how much fun Verdi's eighth opera turned out to be.
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You might think a German newspaper on a press freedom crusade could find a more worthy target than a baroque mezzo. Apparently not.
Continue reading "Cecilia Bartoli threatens European democracy" »
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Booking for the first chunk of the ROH's 2013-14 season opens tomorrow (for ROH Friends) and 9 July (enemies).
Top of your list should be Music Theatre Wales' guest appearances in the Linbury Studio. Not just because Mark Anthony Turnage's Greek and Salvatore Sciarrino’s The Killing Flower are rarely-performed modern classics, but because they're likely to sell out very quickly. Unless, of course, the ROH are holding seats back to flog at at a later date, as has been their most recent annoying habit. "Three-dimensional sonic structures that envelop an audience in extremes of volume and texture" are promised in another Linbury opera, the brand-new The Wasp Factory by Ben Frost and David Pountney.
Continue reading "Royal Opera House autumn booking unleashed" »
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Natalie Dessay confirms to the San Francisco Examiner what her calendar has long suggested. Her Manon in Toulouse this September will be her last appearance on the operatic stage.
What kind of "something else?" Spoken theatre, as Dessay has mentioned countless times, is her real passion. But for the moment she's settling for a French concert tour with Michel Legrand.
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The Konzerthaus Berlin have denied the Berliner Philharmoniker a record-breaking third victory in a row in the annual Berlin musicians' football tournament.
Crushed beneath their boots on the path to glory were the Deutsche Oper, Komische Oper, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Staatskapelle, and the teenagers of the Bach-Gymnasium music school.
Clarinettist Professor Ralf Forster clinched the final with a powerful penalty that left the Philharmonic's timpanist goalie with no chance.
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Renée Fleming is to perform an intimate one-off gig at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre on 4 November to mark the beginning of her Humanitas Visiting Professorship (thanks to reader James for the tip-off). Appearing with her is the Oxford Philomusica conducted by Marios Papadopoulos. The programme has yet to be announced.
Tickets cost from £15 to £50 and can be bought on the Oxford Playhouse website. I strongly suggest you book soon; tickets went on sale today with almost no publicity and already many are gone.
As the seating details are not clear on the booking site, you may like to take a look at the photo and seating plan below before slapping down any money.
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A bunch of 4th grade German schoolchildren taken to Frankfurt Opera wrote a report on their trip for the Frankfurter Neue Presse. Unlike most opera reviews written by grown-up professionals, it includes some useful practical advice.
The kids report that there are 1369 seats (stalls and three upper levels). The best and most expensive seats are in the stalls rows 1 to 4, on the first upper level, and in the middle. However, the best acoustics are found in stalls rows 8 and 9. On the top level are standing places that are not put on sale. If your seat has a poor view, you can move there.
This last point is particularly helpful. Oper Frankfurt's own website notes that "it is not possible to see the full depth of the stage from seats at the sides of the circles. It is not possible to read the surtitles (which are all in German) from some seating areas, especially from the aisle seats in the stalls, rows 9 to 22, and some seats at the side of the first balcony."
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'Wigmore Lates @ 36' begin at 10 on Friday nights. Each one hour concert (flat price £12) is followed by a free half hour-ish set in the Wigmore Restaurant from a jazz ensemble. Cringey name aside, the series is genuinely different from standard Wigmore fare - everything from Bach on sax to a recitation from Patricia Routledge.
If the aim is to bring in a new audience, then the sold-out Miloš gig certainly succeeded. The last time I saw so few grey heads there was a schools concert. The programme straddled a few genres too. Miloš began with Bach's C minor suite for lute, taking in a few latin standards before winding up with The girl from Ipanema, Bésame Mucho and Mas que nada.
It goes without saying he's a consummate technician, but what has elevated Miloš above the wannabees is his ability to draw an audience in. He doesn't just play music, he shares it. So deep was the spell he cast barely a cough was heard - even during protracted retuning between numbers. A little friendly banter cemented the deal. Check out the cheesy videos all over YouTube and you might be tempted to regard Miloš as the Katherine Jenkins of the guitar world. He may look as if he was designed by Simon Cowell, but there's real talent and genuine charisma wrapped up in that undeniably attractive package.
If he'd presented the same programme at a more mainstream time, it would be easier to criticise its lack of adventure. But for a late-ish set, followed by jazz from Julian Bliss downstairs, it struck a sympathetic note.
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