Klangforum Wien / Pablo Heras-Casado / Elīna Garanča - Kollegienkirche, 31 July 2012 (Salzburg Festival)
People tend to think about the Salzburg Festival in opera terms, but there are loads of concerts too, generally of a more reliable quality than the operas, and certainly a great deal cheaper. Prime seats for this one were 40 euros, which is probably less than you'd pay in London.
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Elina Garanca spent yesterday rehearsing for tonight's Vienna Opera Ball, where she's set to wow the crowds with an aria from Samson et Dalila and the Vienna favourite Wien, Wien, nur du allein. Her backing band? The Vienna Philharmonic, appearing at this pinnacle of the Austrian social calendar for the first time ever.
Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott are expected too, but they won't be performing (unless perhaps they overdo the champagne). Instead they'll join guests including Bob Geldof and Larry Hagman.
But it's likely all eyes will be on Ruby - "I can only belly-dance, I can't waltz" - the 'belly dancer' at the heart of the Berlusconi underage sex scandal. She has reportedly been paid a whopping 40,000 euros to accompany tiresome self-publicist Richard Lugner, whose previous escorts have included stripper Dita von Teese and Paris Hilton. This may be the last time he embarrasses Vienna though - applications are already due for next year's ball, but Mr Lugner's name is apparently not amongst them.
photos © Christian Bruna/TZ Österreich
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Coming on stage to announce Elina Garanca's last-minute no-show (greeted by boos) at his Vienna State Opera Gala, Ioan Holender was characteristically frank. "Fortunately, these "illnesses" don't usually last long, " he said pointedly, highlighting the curious facts that Garanca was well enough to appear the previous night in Eisenstadt (just outside Vienna), and was still scheduled for Carmen in Valencia this week.
Evidently, Garanca's late withdrawal from Vienna's Carmen last month still rankles - on both sides.
After a heart operation forced conductor Mariss Jansons to pull out a few weeks before the Carmen premiere, it's rumoured the "exhaustion" which excused Garanca coincided with Vienna's failure to install her husband Karel Mark Chichon as Jansons' replacement. Although Chichon's credentials are in no doubt - he has conducted in Vienna before and is booked for further dates in future - the job went instead to Andris Nelsons.
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Carmen - Royal Opera House, 6 October 2009
The sizzle may have fizzled from Roberto Alagna's marriage, but he can still hot it up on stage. The chemistry between his Don José and Elina Garanča's Carmen is the main thing going for this otherwise tepid revival of Francesca Zambello's wannabe-West End extravaganza. Despite all the fussy, overpopulated action and assorted live animals Zambello packs between the curvaceous terracotta walls of Tanya McCallin's sets, this Carmen only really takes off when the two of them are together.
Without resorting to the usual strutting heroics seen in this role, Roberto offers a rough-edged but remarkably subtle portrayal of a dutiful soldier flipped from upright to horizontal by his obsessive passion for the stunning Garanča. He's neither as hawt nor as thrilling as Jonas Kaufmann (can't wait to catch him in La Scala's prima live on the big screen) was a couple of years back but then who is?
Garanča is more problematical. Carmen needs a bit of dirt under her fingernails, and no, an elegant smudge of brown greasepaint is not the same thing. Her agile, honeyed voice is elegance personified; there's little to suggest an earthy gypsy heart beating beneath.
She squirmed awkwardly through the first act, dry-humping everything in Zambello's overstuffed Spanish square from the horse trough to the village idiot like a randy Yorkshire Terrier. Fortunately the matadors didn't turn up till the last act, or she'd have been picking sequins out of her ladybits for weeks. But by this time she's swapped her thigh rubbing and bosom heaving for a more refined life as Escamillo's escort. Her transformation was maybe too complete - I wanted to hear the coarse gypsy beneath the buttoned exterior - but the final showdown with Don José was compelling stuff.
The rest of the cast were underwhelming. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's Escamillo was even less animated than the docile horse he made his entrance on. Liping Zhang's Micaëla was underplayed. Only Eri Nakamura's lively Frasquita made any impact. Bertrand de Billy held things together, no more, in the pit.
***** lots more photos over page ******
Continue reading "Elina Garanca clicks Alagna's castanets in Carmen" »
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Here first! - a full list of all the Royal Opera House's main stage productions for the 2009/10 season.
The 2009/10 Covent Garden season opens with neither bang nor whimper but with a credit-crunching concert performance on 7 September (repeated on 14 September). Makes a change from last year's Sun readers' special I suppose.
The opera in question is Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and the conductor is bel canto genius Mark Elder. The cast includes potential Next Big Things Stephen Costello, Eglise Gutierrez and Luciano Botelho, plus the incomparable Alessandro Corbelli, the first of several welcome appearances this season.
The first staged opera of the season is Nicholas Hytner's lego-loving Don Carlo, with - OMG!- Jonas Kaufmann !!! in the title role. John Tomlinson joins him as the Grand Inquisitor, and the rest of the cast is lifted straight from the first run - Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, fans' favourite Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sonia Ganassi and Pumeza Matshikiza.The conductor is Semyon Bychkov.
This season's contribution to the 2013 Wagnerversary is a new Christof Loy production of Tristan und Isolde. Antonio Pappano conducts Ben Heppner, Nina Stemme, Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch.
Neigh! Francesco Zambello's ghastly Carmen returns in October, with the latest Covent Garden favourite Elina Garanca back for the title role, fighting off Roberto Alagna, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, and a farmyard full of furry friends. Bertrand de Billy conducts. It's resuscitated again in June 2010 with a distinctly 'B' cast.
October also sees one of Richard Jones's more subtle and effective efforts back on stage - and attractively cast. The shouldn't-work-but-it-does double bill of Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Christine Rice, Yann Beuron, Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and Bonaventura Bottone) and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson and Stephen Costello) is conducted by Pappano.
Francesco Zambello steps into Tchaikovsky's The Slippers in November. The new production will be conducted by Alexander Polianichko and features some serious talent fresh from the Mariinsky - Olga Guryakova, Vsevolod Grivnov, Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Matorin and Maxim Mikhailov.
John Schlesinger's elderly Der Rosenkavalier is dusted off in December. Kirill Petrenko conducts and the cast includes Soile Isokoski, Sophie Koch, Thomas Allen and Lucy Crowe.
Littering the December and January schedules is the inevitable La Bohème. This time Andris Nelsons conducts most of the double-cast performances, which begin with Piotr Beczala and Hibla Gerzmava and end with not a few tbc's.
Robert Lepage's intermittently effective Rake's Progress returns in January 2010. Ingo Metzmacher, Toby Spence (a Tom Rakewell tdf), Kate Royal, Kyle Ketelsen and Stephanie Blythe promise much on the musical side.
Female conductor alert! Top Lisboan Julia Jones wields the baton over Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan Tutte in January. The cast includes Charles Castronovo and Sally Matthews.
A new Richard Jones production of Prokofiev's The Gambler in February is conducted by Pappano, with a cast including Roberto Sacca, Angela Denoke, John Tomlinson and Jurgita Adamonyte.
Plácido Domingo's first appearance of the season is as a tenor. Graham Vick's acclaimed production of Handel's Tamerlano (recorded in Madrid and available on DVD con Plácido)
Bill Bryden's family-friendly The Cunning Little Vixen returns in March with Emma Matthews, Christopher Maltman and Emma Bell, though the presence of Charles Mackerras on the podium has to be the main draw.
Caurier and Leiser's lovely Il Turco in Italia is back in April, with Maurizio Benini conducting, and Aleksandra Kursak, Colin Lee, Alessandro Corbelli, Thomas Allen and Ildebrando d'Arcangelo in the cast.
Aida is subjected to the David McVicar magic in April. His new production is conducted by Nicola Luisotti and features Micaela Carosi, Marcelo Alvarez and Luciana D'Intino. Bare naked elephants?
The last of the Big Three, Richard Eyre's subtly intelligent La Traviata, makes its annual appearance in May and July. This time her name's in the programme - Our first Lady of the Camellias is the fabulous former Netrebko sub Ermonela Jaho. Joining her in her long-awaited return to Covent Garden in May are Saimir Pirgu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. July's 'B' Violetta is Angela Gheorghiu, who makes do with James Valenti and Zeljko Lucic. Yves Abel conducts.
Laurent Pelly's now-legendary La Fille du Régiment returns in May with the unbeatable original cast of Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Alessandro Corbelli and Felicity Palmer back in place. Bruno Campanella conducts.
What would tempt Sir Colin Davis back into the pit? How about David McVicar's Le Nozze di Figaro? Erwin Schrott, Camilla Tilling, Maruisz Kwiecen. Annette Dasch, Soile Isokoski and Christine Schäfer head the strong cast.
Antonio Pappano conducts Laurent Pelly's new Manon, coming to Covent Garden in June with the announced cast including Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Anyone fancy a bet?
In one of those rare operatic fairy stories, June sees a baritone with less than a year's experience thrust into a leading role at Covent Garden. Yes, it's Plácido Domingo again, and this time he's Simon Boccanegra. Antonio Pappano conducts a strong cast including Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Joseph Calleja. It's the 1991 Elijah Moshinsky production by the way, not the Ian Judge one seen last year.
The season ends in July 2010 with the first revival of David McVicar's controversial Salome. Angela Denoke takes the central role, with Johan Reuter as Jokanaan. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.
No link yet, but more details expected on the Royal Opera House website sometime next week.
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*******UPDATE 22/4*******
The Royal Opera House's press releases are now available on their website. Go here for the summary, here for the opera details and here for the ballet.
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I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Royal Opera House, 30 March 2009
I booked tickets for both ends of the current Capuleti run (curiously, four weeks apart), on the basis that even a serial canceller like Netrebko wouldn't dare cop out of both. Luckily I dodged the inevitable and caught her twice.
She wasn't at her absolute best, occasionally forcing her tone or slipping beneath the note, in a way that suggested lapses of concentration rather than serious problems. But most of her singing was very lovely indeed - liquid, intelligent and delicately nuanced - and she even managed a good firm trill at one point.
It was announced that Elina Garanca was suffering from a cold - collective sigh - but that she'd sing anyway - delighted applause. I couldn't tell anything was amiss. As on the first night, she shaded Netrebko in purely vocal terms.
But there's a real partnership between these two, at the musical level and beyond, and it transcends any of the finicky technical stuff. Listening to their exquisitely-matched love duet, or watching them grapple playfully on the bed afterwards as the applause thundered out made that clear.
The orchestra's contribution was patchy - dodgy woodwind intonation marred the prelude, and a few moments of hush were unbalanced by over-enthusiastic violins. But the solos, especially the haunting horn that introduces Giulietta, were well-taken. As on the first night, the only real disappointment lay with the male roles - when you're playing the same game as Netrebko, Garanca, and Elder, you need to be in the same league - mere adequacy is just not enough.
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I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Royal Opera House, 2 March 2009 (opening night)
Sad - and surprising - to report that the Capuleti premiere couldn't quite match the thrilling rehearsal on Friday. Usually it's the other way round. But a little air had escaped from the balloon, a little of the lustre rubbed off. It was still very, very good though, with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca taking a lot of the credit.
Not all of Netrebko's top notes were perfectly secure, her tone sometimes coarsened and she swooped and slid just a little bit more than good taste would suggest. But these were minor quibbles in a performance of immense musicality and warmth, one that moreover transcended the theatrical limitations of an elegant production which places aesthetic considerations above dramatic.
While others gesticulated hopefully, like a row of medieval Thunderbirds, Netrebko lived and breathed Giulietta's compulsive ardour with a calculated abandon. Her voice meshes perfectly with Elina Garanca's, most strikingly in their unison duet, a showstopping moment.
Garanca is not quite the actress Netrebko is, but can match and even surpass her for stamina and sheer beauty of tone. Netrebko I'm sure will have converted a few more unbelievers, and Garanca enhanced her rapidly growing reputation.
The blokes trail some way behind. None exactly fail, but none are up to the calibre of the supporting cast on Netrebko and Garanca's recent CD of the opera. The patrician gravity of Eric Owens's Capelio is marred by a vibrato so wide that the line sometimes disappears. Giovanni Battista Parodi's Lorenzo is dramatically effective, but unsteady of tone. And Joseph Calleja could eat the ROH's weedy Tebaldo, Dario Schmunk, for breakfast. With fries. The neatly colour-coded chorus (red for Capuleti, blue for Montecchi) were more impressive than the soloists, even if diction left something to be desired.
Mark Elder makes Bellini sound as clever as Mozart and as bold as Wagner. His tempos are on the slow side. Instead of the usual breathless rush of smudged notes, the spare details of the score emerge with crystal clarity. And he is so considerate of the singers, following Netrebko's caprices minutely, never rushing or overwhelming. The orchestra were on good form, though clearly not at their freshest. Horn and clarinet solos were painstakingly immaculate; pity the woodwind intonation wasn't.
Pier Luigi Pizzi's austerely elegant production looks routine in photos, but it's rigorously constructed, deceptively so. Pizzi is also his own designer. His architectural training results in a series of striking tableaux that are never simply random or just pretty.
What differentiates Bellini's version of the tale from Shakespeare's is its fatalistic propulsion. Each of Pizzi's sets simply shuffles the ever-present classical columns this way or that, a superficial adjustment of unvarying elements that underlines the inexorable fate of the young lovers. As Giulietta wakes in the tomb, drawing back the gauzy black veil which covers her prone form, we are reminded of her first appearance, kneeling alone in her room veiled in white, when - in a departure from Shakespeare - she wills her own death. What's missing from this production is detailed individual direction, personenregie, and as a result it's not as involving as more conventional interpretation might be. But if lives are guided by irresistible forces, not personal motivations, is that really an oversight?
For those who find Pizzi's allusions just a bit too subtle, there are some corking swordfights, courtesy of Fight Director Mike Loades, a man whose name should, by rights, be up there in lights with Anna Netrebko's. The Royal Opera House can always be relied on for a good scrap (some of the pathetic efforts I've seen in places like San Francisco and Vienna would be laughed off stage in London). But here they have surpassed themselves. The money spent on 'Actor Fighters' has not been wasted. Even Elina Garanca looks a doughty prospect with a weapon in her hand.
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many more photos over teh page.................
Continue reading "I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Royal Opera House" »
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Is February over already?
Opera
At the Royal Opera House, I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca opens on 2 March. Kill for tickets.
Next up is a new double bill of Dido and Aeneas with Acis and Galatea opening 31 March. Choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose work demonstrates little musical sensibility, is the odd choice of director. Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Danielle de Niese make their ROH debuts.
On 13 March there's a one-off performance of Verdi's Messa da Requiem . Antonio Pappano conducts Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Piotr Beczala and Ildar Abdrazakov. Sold out, but check for returns towards the date.
At ENO, there's a revival of one of their better recent productions, David Alden's Jenùfa with Amanda Roocroft.
English Touring Opera bring the Magic Flute to Hackney Empire on 12 and 14 March, with Katya Kabanova on 13 March. For authentic 'period' atmosphere (and a bargain), buy the cheapest balcony seats, then stand at the back with your beer (the balcony bar is open throughout the show).
On 2, 4 and 9 March the Royal Academy of Music present Haydn's charming La fedeltà premiata in their bijou but perfectly-formed theatre.
Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBCSO attempt an overdue rehabilitation of Martinů's Julietta in concert at the Barbican on 27 March, with Magdalena Kozena in the title role.
And on 28 March David Parry and the LPO bring Rossini's Ermione to the Royal Festival Hall.
Not opera
At the Barbican, 7 March is the BBCSO's Xenakis day. On 11 March Thomas Quasthoff presents a Bach and Handel programme. On 12 March it's the turn of Valery Gergiev and the LSO, who perform Parsifal's Act 3 with the awesome Rene Pape and the remarkably-tattooed Evgeny Nikitin. Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw visit on 14 and 15 March with Beethoven's 7th and Bruckner's 9th.
The Royal Festival Hall hosts Maurizio Pollini on 4 March and the not-so-retired-after-all Alfred Brendel on 7 March (it's a charity concert for Comic Relief and he's credited as 'poet'). On 12 March at 6pm there's a FREE concert of Oliver Knussen's vocal works, conducted by the composer himself, with Claire Booth. A few tickets remain for countertenor Philippe Jaroussky in the Purcell Room on 23 March. On 29 March Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are joined by Anja Harteros in a programme that includes the Eroica Symphony and Strauss's Four Last Songs.
At Wigmore Hall, Mark Padmore visits on 12 March with a Brahms and Schubert programme. Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk appear on 26 March. Check the website for the inevitable returns.
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Today's general rehearsal for I Capuleti e i Montecchi (opening at the Royal Opera House on Monday) could hardly have gone better. A few question marks over the guys maybe, but Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca were on stunning form, Garanca in particular entirely flawless.
This role really shows Netrebko's strengths with its soaring legato phrasing - none of that hit-and-miss twiddly batsqueak stuff. Even in rehearsal she's right under Giulietta's skin. She looks gorgeous too, in a flowing cream gown - cut low for maximum bewbage but skimming gracefully over any remaining post-baby chub.
And we even got to see her in person and close-up as she made a surprise passage through the bar at the interval, still in full costume of course, with photographer and baby-toting husband Erwin Schrott in tow. The baby incidentally is utterly adorable, his thick black hair in a little mohawk and a look of permanent surprise on his face.
Elina Garanca got an even bigger ovation than Netrebko and deservedly so - tone, phrasing, flexibility, stamina - she had it all. The press photographers in the stalls went trigger-crazy at every Netrebko/Garanca clinch - I'm now waiting for the lurid lesbo headline in the Daily Mail.
Mark Elder's Bellini is a revelation, clean-limbed and twinkling. I hope the ballet-style oafish applause over the end of each scene won't be repeated on opening night though.
Netrebko and Garanca recorded in Vienna last year:
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The Royal Opera House's spring season starts in March. Booking is already open for Friends of the ROH; mere punters can join the online queues on 3 February.
First up is Bellini's version of the Romeo and Juliet story, I Capuleti e i Montecchi. I haven't seen this production, but it premiered in 1984, so I'm betting on more crinolines than underpants. The big draw is the casting of Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca. The ROH have cunningly scheduled around la Netrebka's inevitable sick leave by placing performance dates at the beginning and end of March, with a big recovery break in between.
Netrebko and Garanca perform Crudel, d'onor ragioni in Vienna:
The fabulous Mark Elder conducts, and also opens one of his orchestral rehearsals to public scrutiny on 14 February - highly recommended.
The pairing of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Handel's Acis and Galatea is not just a celebration of both composers in their anniversary year - it's also the first ever co-production of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet. Both are directed by Wayne McGregor - a bold choice, as music generally seems more an afterthought than a creative basis for his choreography. But we shall see. More ROH debutants in the cast, which includes Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Danielle de Niese.
The Alagna circus rolls into town for Elijah Moshinsky's brutally trad production of Il trovatore. Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Sondra Radvanovsky provide the vocal backbone. Opera's own Don Johnson is also interrogated 'In Conversation' for anyone lucky enough to snag a ticket. Will Mrs A come and cheer him along from the stalls? Unlike Anna Netrebko, she's far too grand for the cheap seats
More Moshinsky with his ancient but unfussy Lohengrin, conducted by Semyon Bychkov. Man-mountain Johan Botha shares the title role with the merely stout Simon O'Neill - both are worth catching. The reliable Petra Lang and Falk Struckmann are Ortrud and Telramund, but perhaps the most interesting casting is Edith Haller, barely out of music college but already a Bayreuth veteran. She replaces the previously-advertised Anne Schwanewilms as Elsa.
Last year's hay-strewn Laurent Pelly L'elisir d'amore is speedily revived, this time with Diana Damrau and Giuseppe Filianoti.
Finally, there's a special performance of Verdi's Requiem conducted by Pappano on 13 March - soloists are Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Piotr Beczala and Ildar Abdrazakov. Be warned tickets will go quickly for this one.
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