La donna del lago - Royal Opera House, 17 May 2013 (first night)
The Royal Opera House has pulled together the most perfect cast imaginable for this new production. They more than lived up to expectations, with line after line of the most thrillingly spectacular Rossini singing I've ever heard. Even a production that rivals the recent Nabucco for sheer ineptness couldn't dim their brilliance.
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The ROH officially revealed full details of their 2013-14 season this morning. As most had slipped out one way or the other already, there are only one or two surprises - not all of them welcome.
There are seven new productions, and in celebration of Richard Strauss's 150th birthday there are three of his operas.
The most exciting new production, long-known, is Stefan Herheim's Les Vepres Siciliennes, conducted by Antonio Pappano and featuring Marina Poplavskaya, Erwin Schrott, Michael Volle and the inevitable Bryan Hymel.
Claus Guth's Die Frau Ohne Schatten comes fresh(ish) from La Scala with Johan Botha, Emily Magee, Michaela Schuster and Johan Reuter, and is conducted by Semyon Bychkov.
A new (to Covent Garden) Robert Carsen Carmelites conducted by Simon Rattle features Magdalena Kozena and Anna Prohaska.
Star-wise, Juan Diego Florez is back in La fille du régiment, this time with Patrizia Ciofi, Ewa Podles - and future Downton Abbey star Dame Kiri te Kanawa.
Manon Lescaut features Jonas Kaufmann, together with Kristine Opolais and Christopher Maltman. There's a Faust revival with Joseph Calleja, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel and Simon Keenlyside. Joyce DiDonato reprises her Maria Stuarda in a new Leiser/Caurier production, with Carmen Giannattasio and Charles Castronovo. Karita Mattila makes her return to Covent Garden in Keith Warner's splendid Wozzeck, also featuring Simon Keenlyside, and Christof Loy's Ariadne auf Naxos, with Jane Archibald and Ruxandra Donose.
To compensate for his multiple London no-shows perhaps, Jonas Kaufmann also gives a main stage recital on 6 April.
Conductor wise, the major shock is that baritenor Placido Domingo will be let loose on Tosca.
Continue reading "Royal Opera House 2013- 2014 season revealed " »
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Juan Diego Flórez / Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn cond. Alessandro Vitiello - Royal Albert Hall, 8 May 2012
It's nearly six years since Juan Diego Flórez last gave a solo concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Some criticised the microphone he used for part of that evening to help his voice carry in the cavernous space. This time round the mics were there for recording purposes only. No amplification was used. None was required; Flórez measured his voice to the size of the venue and muscled up more ear-splitting decibels than a heldentenor at full blast. And that's not some airy metaphor - it's a fact. Let no-one claim his voice is 'too small' for anything less than a football stadium. From my prize vantage point a few feet away I wondered if I'd be going home with tinnitus.
Continue reading "Juan Diego Florez does the Royal Albert Hall" »
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Tanya Gold interviewed Juan Diego Florez in Pesaro for yesterday's Sunday Times. "I love Florez the interviewee: the conventions of PR just bounce off him" she says. "He doesn’t see much, but what he does, he tells". Like what?
He always seems immaculately prepared, so it's surprising to hear him describe himself in the interview as "a bit of a lazy kind." “Sometimes I find myself in the last rehearsals of a new opera and I don’t know the words,” he says, although he adds “From now on I would like to prepare more.” What's more, he is always late for rehearsal, and says Natalie Dessay is furious about it. Could Natalie be one of the “bats”, as he apparently refers to divas?
He reveals his wedding venue, Lima's cathedral, was not his idea but his agent's - “I tried not to have it on TV,” he pleads.
And although he follows a vegetarian diet - his wife's idea - JDF is clearly no health freak. He smokes a cigar 'sometimes'.
But perhaps the most interesting confession is found at the foot of the page, where the Sunday Times reveals that Tanya Gold's trip to Pesaro was paid for by Rosenblatt Recitals. It's not unusual for celebrity interviews in exotic locales to be financed by those who benefit, but it's rare that the tit-for-tat is publicly acknowledged. Could the Sunday Times be turning over a new leaf? After all, who recently said "If we're going to have a transparent society, a transparent democracy, let's have everything out in the open”?
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You may recall a rumour aired here back in February that Jonas Kaufmann would return to the Wigmore Hall on 21 April 2013.
Well, the date is confirmed - but the show has been upsized to the Royal Festival Hall, where Jonas's playmates are the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Fighting for the hearts and wallets of the London audience will be Juan Diego Flórez and Joyce DiDonato, who are at the Barbican on the same night.
This is where a free market economy gets you.
The Kaufmann date isn't on the Southbank website yet, but you can see it in a brochure called Classical Music 2012/13 which you can pick up for free from the Royal Festival Hall.
The Kaufmann concert is expected to go on sale on 17 September 2012, but see below. Also included in the brochure are some other dates which may be of interest:
***UPDATE*** the box office says some of these concerts will go on sale on 30 April (or 25 April for members) - it's not clear exactly which ones.
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The Saturday audience at the Met for L'Elisir d’Amore (and radio listeners) had an unexpected treat when Juan Diego Flórez encored his rapturously received Una furtiva lagrima (complete with bonus high notes).
The Met whipped out a detailed press release so quickly one might almost imagine the whole thing was planned in advance to ginger up the 20 year old production on its final outing (a new production is in the works for next season). From this we learn that JDF also gave the last Met encore, in 2008.
Fortunately some miscreant had a recording device to hand, so we can watch as well as listen to both iterations.
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Yesterday Juan Diego Florez performed the role of chief head-tousler at the launch of a Sistema-style symphony orchestra project in Lima. The orchestra is inviting applications from children of poor families across Peru, and will start up in March.
In a country where it can be hard to finance cultural activities, the project has attracted private funding from Peruvian power company Edelnor, who will also provide a physical base for the orchestra's activities in their Lima offices.
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..... will be mostly parky, according to Juan Diego Florez, who wrapped up warmly for a press conference at the Budapest Opera. He gives his first ever Hungarian concert there on Monday evening.
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Juan Diego Flórez is the Usain Bolt of bizarre sicknotes. Yes, he's beaten his own world record. Once again, he's swallowed something he should never have admitted into his gob in the first place.
His last champion excuse was "a throat infection caused by a fish bone he swallowed".
But even that one, unlikely as it sounds, has been trumped by his latest misadventure.
"A strong single cough after swallowing some sea water" has broken a small blood vessel on a vocal cord. And that means, like Jonas Kaufmann, JDF won't be joining Teatro Comunale di Bologna's imminent tour of Japan.
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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.
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Le Comte Ory - Metropolitan Opera, 5 April 2011
No, not the big screen version, the real thing. Tuesday night's performance was filmed as a dry run for the big HD event, with the cameras a distracting presence on the periphery, and what I assume was clumsy amplification lending a pronounced echo to certain voices. As so often at the Proms, I had the lurking feeling that those of us in the house were a second class audience, a mere applause machine dragged in to provide 'atmosphere' for the consecration to hard copy. And despite some truly fabulous singing, the show was never quite engaging enough to shake off the doubts.
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No official confirmation at this stage, but it looks as if Juan Diego Florez and Renee Fleming may be ravishing the ears of guests at the wedding of Prince Albert II of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock, which takes place in Monte Carlo on 1-3 July.
Hurry up and choose yours, Wills and Kate, or you'll get stuck with Katherine Jenkins!
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Juan Diego Flórez / Vincenzo Scalera - Royal Festival Hall
After a low-key start, Juan Diego Flórez ended his latest London recital triumphantly with a standing ovation and a stream of encores - despite an unaccustomed memory lapse and an even more out-of-character - shhhh ~super-sweary outburst~ along the way.
Continue reading "Juan Diego Florez talks dirty at the Royal Festival Hall" »
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Even if you don't speak German, you should be able to digest at least part of the new opera-celebrity cookbook Die Oper Kocht. And not just because it's stuffed with photos by noted opera-snapper Johannes Ifkovits.
Alongside the German text of each singer's recipe, a hand written version is served up in their own native tongue. Even the most linguistically-challenged could manage Danielle De Niese's Guacamole, Simon Keenlyside's Fish Pie and Joyce DiDonato's Cinnamon Rolls, though Renee Fleming's serial-killer handwriting makes Diva Renee au Chocolat hard to decipher. If that's not enough, an English language version of the book is promised for later in the year.
Each of the 64* featured performers gets a 4 page spread, which begins with a little amuse-gueule about what they cook and like to eat. We learn for example that Juan Diego Flórez enjoys quinoa with olive oil and parmesan before a performance, and used to phone his mother for cooking tips when he moved from Peru to the US (aaahhh).
Then there's a full-page oven-ready portrait in jocular vein (see JDF's at the top of this post). Flipping over, we come to a double page featuring the recipe itself, copiously garnished with photos of the singer preparing his or her creation (or at least pretending convincingly).
It's not clear whether you're expected to actually cook the recipes or simply gaze at Jonas Kaufmann pawing his parmesan. But I gave it a go anyway.
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Booking opened just a few minutes ago for Juan Diego Florez's Royal Festival Hall recital on 20 January 2011, and already all the best tickets are gone (held back for the organiser, Rosenblatt Recitals, I wonder?). Nice to see Juan Diego doesn't forget the people who gave him an early break, by the way, and also that there are loads of cheap £6 seats in the choir, if you don't mind looking at the back of his head all night.
There are plenty of seats left at sides and rear at the moment, though I don't expect they'll last for long, so get your skates on.
Also just opened for booking is Simon Keenlyside at the highly atmospheric (if acoustically dodgy) Temple Church on 22 October 2010. While you're at it, take a look at Temple Music's other events, which include recitals by Nathan Vale and Mark Padmore, and Monteverdi's Vespers by the Sixteen.
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Tony Pappano's Opera Italia is the pick so far of the BBC's current opera season.
Here are some of the best bits.
Juan Diego discusses the finer points of Rossini over a bucket or two of vino rosso:
and his startling Cessa di piu resistere with rehearsal style piano - and vocal - accompaniment from the maestro:
more vocal accompaniment for the criminally underappreciated Pietro Spagnoli and Largo al factotum:
Do check out the whole thing on the iPlayer - there's a tip here about accessing it from outside the UK.
UPDATE - a few more clips:
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La Fille du régiment - Royal Opera House, 17 May 2010
This was my fifth or so viewing of Laurent Pelly’s now-classic production, and I have to confess – this time it was easier to understand how the cast get through the night without cracking up. The humour relies on visual gags which inevitably tire eventually - the line of dancing underpants, the housemaids’ choreographed dusting, even the final coup de theatre as Juan Diego Flórez rolls in to save the day atop a tank. Agathe Mélinand's crudely updated dialogue is hardly timeless either. But I could forgive the uncontrolled laughter of the other 99% of the audience – I was there once. And let’s face it, as comic operas go, La Fille du régiment is actually not that funny on the page nor musically inventive enough to compensate. It needs Pelly’s interventions more than it needs preserving in aspic.
Continue reading "La fille du regiment, Royal Opera House {{{LOL}}}" »
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Juan Diego Flórez / Vincenzo Scalera - Barbican, 7 May 2010
Cimarosa Pria che spunti in ciel from Matrimonio segreto Rossini La lontananza Le Sylvain L’orgia Intervento pianistico Che ascolto from Otello Jose Serrano El mismo rey del moro from La alegria del batallon Agustin Perez Soriano Serenata from El guitarrico Tomás Barrera Saavedra Adios Granada from Los emigrantes Amadeo Vives Por el humo from Doña Francisquita Jules Massenet Pourquoi me reveiller from Werther François-Adrien Boieldieu Vien gentile dame from La dame blanche Encores: Rossini cabaletta from Cessa di più resistere Gounod Ah, lève-toi soleil "a Peruvian little song" Verdi La donna è mobile
Juan Diego Flórez is sometimes criticised for focussing on a narrow range of repertoire. Yet all tenors have their limitations. Flórez should instead be praised for recognising his. Better to be a first rate Almaviva or Tonio every night than fritter credibility and vocal health away on ill-suited escapades.
Continue reading "Juan Diego Florez freshens up at the Barbican" »
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The Independent's Jessica Duchen just couldn't wait for Juan Diego Flórez's visit to the Barbican tonight.
So she interviewed him in Madrid.
The results may surprise some. He prefers modern productions! He used to write his own songs! He's a vegetarian! (so will Chicago Lyric Opera reopen the fish bone files, then?). And loads more interesting stuff.
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