It's the time of the year to find out what's happening next year, and rocketing off the blocks like a greased chorizo with their new season announcement is Madrid's Teatro Real.
Like everywhere else, the theatre has suffered a budget squeeze, with its public subsidy around a third lower than in was in 2010. Nevertheless Monsieur Mortier has pulled a pretty impressive programme out of the bag.
A Mozart trilogy sees Michael Haneke directing Così fan tutte, Dmitri Tcherniakov Don Giovanni, and Simon Rattle bringing his Berlin Philharmonic to Madrid for Die Zauberflöte. The world premiere of a new Philip Glass opera about Walt Disney, The Perfect American, is a bit of a coup (it later travels to ENO). Wozzeck (with Simon Keenlyside), Moses und Aron and Il prigionero are also on the bill, not to mention a concert performance of Parsifal.
Mortier even bows to his local H8rs without dumbing down. A generous dollop of the profoundly uncontroversial includes Placido Domingo in Il postino, Juan Diego Florez in Les pêcheurs de perles, la Gruberova in Roberto Devereux and Riccardo Muti conducting the obscure Mercadante opera La rappresaglia in what is unlikely to be a cutting-edge production.
Full details available on the Teatro Real site in annoying webmag format.
