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Juan Diego Flórez returns to the Royal Albert Hall on 8 May 2012 for the biggest Rosenblatt Recital like EVAH. He'll be joined by the Württembergisches Kammerorchester of Heilbronn conducted by Alessandro Vitiello.
Tickets are on sale now at prices from £22 to £69.
See an opera at Holland Park for nothing!
The Opera Challenge scheme introduced last year is to be repeated. 100 *free* tickets for each performance of Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz (June 10, 15, 17, 21, 23, and 25) will be allocated on a first come first served basis (maximum 4 per person).
Although the tickets are technically free, you are encouraged to pay whatever you think they're worth by way of a donation to OHP’s Inspire Project, which helps develop new audiences.
I'll leave you to interpret the instructions in the press release: "To apply, telephone the box office on 0300 999 1000 and quote ‘the opera challenge’ from Tuesday 31 May. Tickets for the Opera Challenge are only available online." *UPDATE* - these tickets are not available online - see OHP Mike's comment below.
The Berlin Philharmonic are taking a leaf out of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's book next season.
In the spirit of the OAE and their after-hours Night Shift, the Berlin Philharmonic are trying out late evening concerts in 2011/12. Simon Rattle will conduct five hour-long sessions beginning at 22.30. These will follow regular subscription concerts. Admission will be free for visitors to the earlier concert, and 10 euros otherwise. With regular prices at the Philharmonie topping out at nearly ten times that amount, it's a real bargain.
Terry Gilliam's Nazi-tasting ENO production of The Damnation of Faust is to air on BBC4 this autumn.
The director himself will introduce the work for TV.
In recent years, opera on BBC TV has been the near-exclusive preserve of the Royal Opera House. While ENO have teamed up with Sky Arts for a series of gimmicks like '"3-D Lucrezia" and "Multiview Bohème", I can't remember when one of their productions last aired on a terrestrial channel. Could this signal a longer-term switch in BBC affiliations?
Supreme Court Justice - and rabid opera fan - Ruth Bader Ginsburg was doubly honoured at Harvard University yesterday when part of the citation for her honorary degree was sung by fellow recipient Placido Domingo, to the tune of Celeste Aida.
Transposed, natch.
Ariodante - Barbican, 25 May 2011
Nice singers, shame about the band. Anyone who came to hear Joyce DiDonato won't have been disappointed. Costumed as Ronnie O'Sullivan for her cross-dressing title role in this concert performance, she outclassed everyone else on stage with her clean line and crisp coloratura.
Continue reading "Ariodante at the Barbican - it's Joyce DiDonato's night" »
Macbeth - Royal Opera House, 24 May 2011 (first night)
Liudmyla Monastyrska met all the hopes raised by the YouTube evidence and her recent Aida when she made her debut as Lady Macbeth at Covent Garden earlier tonight. It's all about the voice - and what a battle tank of a voice - dark, powerful, solid top-to-bottom, and huuuuuge. At full throttle, it blasts through the theatre, yet she manoeuvres it precisely around the fiddliest coloratura, and can wind it down to a whisper without losing its shape. I can think of no current soprano who could meet the demands of the role quite so perfectly, and the rest of the audience recognised it too - her every aria roundly applauded. In short, a miracle.
Rusalka - Semperoper Dresden, 17 May 2011
There’s no such thing as an innocent myth - it’s impossible to present Rusalka to a modern, thinking audience as your everyday interspecies romance. In Munich, Martin Kušej recently plunged his fork into the rampant misogyny beneath the opera’s sparkling surface with a dead deer-garnished tale of child abuse.
Stefan Herheim instead chooses to slither around it and examine the consequences of male desire from the guy's perspective. Setting the abused and silenced Rusalka to one side, his story is centred on the Waterman. Clever or cowardly? A few thigh boots, bouncy sex dolls, British bobbies and dancing kids in fish suits later it's easy to forget the question.
Thanks to Nick for spotting this lastminute.com offer - tickets for ENO's forthcoming Simon Boccanegra at £15 (Upper Circle) or £25 (Dress Circle). The only risk is that you don't get to pick your seat, so you could end up in the furthest recesses of the back rows.
Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production has been co-commissioned by the discriminating Bavarian State Opera, so it stands a stronger chance than usual of being half-decent.
*UPDATE* TravelZoo have an offer at the same price if you want to choose your own seat - book online in the normal way with ENO, entering the code TZSIMON to get the discount.
*UPDATE* Lastminute.com have a 24 hour sale - and you can get stalls tickets for only £30 - as well as the cheap dress and upper circles that they had before - and it's now been extended to include July dates. (Thanks Faye for spotting).
*UPDATE* And the offers just keep on coming! Time Out are offering best available tickets for £30 each (or two for £30 in the upper circle) - you will need to register with them (free) to get the code. (Thanks Steve for the tip).
Samson et Dalila - Deutsche Oper Berlin, 15 May 2011 (first night)
Patrick Kinmonth's pedigree as a set designer of flair and imagination is immediately obvious in this production, only the second opera he has directed. We find ourselves in the Merchant Ivory version of the late nineteenth century, where the frocks are exquisite, the draperies sumptuous, and the sets bathed in glowing penumbral lighting. But it's not as vacuous as it first looks - though it might have been better if it was.
Idomeneo - Komische Oper Berlin, 14 May 2011 (first night)
Benedikt von Peter's new staging of Idomeneo avoids controversy in the usual sense - the cast are fully clothed and there are no drugs, guns, or bodily fluids on show. But, almost unnoticed, he does away with two of Mozart's lesser characters, Arbace and the Priest. Their music is reassigned to Elektra, here a vengeful voice in Idomeneo's head. He is not the victorious monarch returning to Crete in triumph, but a traumatised war veteran living between imagination and reality. His son Idamante is married to Ilia, and they now have their own small son. Instead of exploring the nature of rule and the consequences of rebelling against divine authority, Peter personalises the issues the opera raises to make it a timely examination of the price of victory in war.
Thanks to penning Le Spectre de la Rose for Les nuits d'été, Hector Berlioz already has a rose named after him. It was only a matter of time before the angle-hungry fragrance market cottoned on. Perfumer Thierry Wasser claims inspiration from the line "Ce léger parfum est mon âme et j’arrive du paradis".
The result is Guerlain's new fragrance, Idylle Duet, a rejig of their existing Idylle which brings out the rose and patchouli notes, and no doubt they hope the credit cards too.
Guerlain opted to soundtrack their ad with some vacuous guitar noodling, so here instead is Dame Janet Baker's celebrated 1972 performance with Herbert Blomstedt:
Guess who?
It's not even opened, and already ENO are discounting tickets for A Midsummer Night's Dream, via Travelzoo (thanks Ruth for spotting).
Balcony tickets are £10 and Upper Circle are £20 with the code TZDREAM.
The offer is valid for all Friday and Saturday shows, as follows:
There's plenty of availability in all areas on all nights, so you may prefer to try TKTS on the day for stalls seats (they've been selling £80-ish tickets for the more popular Damnation of Faust for just £25).
He can play a gig in Gaza, but it seems even the almighty Daniel Barenboim can't get builders to finish a job on time.
To no-one's great surprise, the reopening of Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden has been put back one year, from October 2013 to October 2014. The massive improvements programme has been delayed by various factors including a harsh winter and the surprise discovery of a bunker beneath the opera house.
At an estimated total cost of €240m (or €250m, depending on who you believe), the project has already overshot original budgets.
The Staatsoper company can ill afford to remain another year in their temporary home, the Schiller Theatre. It's smaller than the Lindenoper, meaning maximum ticket revenues are lower. Audiences have fallen from 90% to 80% capacity since the move, and there's rent to pay. The longer the company stays there, the more money it'll lose.
Meanwhile, a ticket office will be opened at the building site, mainly to snare tourists whose guidebooks lead them there. It remains to be seen whether the safe-looking 2011-12 season will encourage more buyers.
Will it be enough? With some Senate opposition members demanding that building work is stopped altogether pending a revised works budget, Daniel Barenboim's greatest fear - that political manoeuvring in the cash-strapped city might turn any temporary closure into a permanent one - looks that little bit closer to materialising.
Given the unrevivability of most of ENO's recent efforts, it's not surprising that next season concentrates on novelties. Some odd choices there though. In an ENO first, all directors are seasoned, or at least nominally competent, so perhaps they'll score a higher hit rate this time round. Interestingly, all four revived productions are traditionally styled, and mostly commissioned by the previous management.
The Elixir of Love, Donizetti, opens 15 September 2011 revival - do we need any more Jonathan Miller? ENO think so
The Passenger, Weinberg, opens 19 September 2011 NEW to ENO - a 'rediscovered' opera that fails to live up to David Pountney's acclaimed Bregenz production
The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, opens 5 October 2011 NEW - Fiona Shaw directs
Castor and Pollux, Rameau, opens 24 October 2011 NEW - Barrie Kosky directs
Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky, opens 12 November 2011 NEW - Deborah Warner directs
Tosca, Puccini, opens 26 November 2011 revival - Catherine Malfitano's superb production from last season proved that the traditional style can still work if the details are right
Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss, opens 28 January 2012 revival - David McVicar's bosom-heaving production
The Tales of Hoffmann, Offenbach, opens 10 February 2012 NEW - Richard Jones directs
The Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams, opens 25 February 2012 NEW - Tom 'War Horse' Morris directs. Can it live up to Penny Woolcock's brilliant filmed version?
Jakob Lenz, Wolfgang Rihm, opens 17 April 2012, Hampstead Theatre NEW - Sam Brown directs
The Flying Dutchman, Wagner, opens 28 April 2012 NEW - Jonathan Kent directs
Madam Butterfly, Puccini, opens 8 May 2012 revival - the reliable Minghella seat-filler
Caligula, Detlev Glanert, opens 25 May 2012 NEW
Billy Budd, Britten, opens 18 June 2012 NEW - David Alden directs; Benedict Nelson takes the title role
Doctor Dee, Damon Albarn, opens 25 June 2012 NEW to ENO - Rufus Norris directs. I'm going to the premiere in Manchester next month - I'll tell you then whether it's an opera or an 'opera'
Anna Netrebko joined Erwin Schrott at a Munich press conference yesterday to pimp their hugely €€€€€ open air gig with Jonas Kaufmann on Königsplatz this summer.
German tabloid Bild, under the headline Anna Nacktrebko (Naked-rebko) viewed the event from their usual in-depth angle (i.e. NSFW).
On 26 June Glyndebourne and the Guardian will both stream the last night of the new Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg live online via guardian.co.uk and glyndebourne.com. It will be available for seven days after the initial broadcast and will be free of charge.
The performance will also be shown at various Picturehouse cinemas, and the Science Museum. (Not free, of course.)
The Turn of the Screw follows on 21 August.
Berliner Philharmoniker / Claudio Abbado / Anna Prohaska / Maurizio Pollini - Philharmonie Berlin, 13 May 2011
Friday night at the Philharmonie marked the start of Berlin's Mahler Week, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer's death on 18 May 1911. But the generous two hour programme wasn't Mahler all the way - just the Adagio from the unfinished 10th Symphony. As two years of Mahler saturation drip to a close, that was plenty enough for my well-sated palate.
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