Intermezzo

Tartan wars - Kasper Holten bites back

Kasper Holten has kindly spared the time to make a lengthy and constructive comment addressing some of the criticism of La donna del lago and the more general issues raised.  You can read it on the post itself, or below:

Va' pensiero sull'ali danese

A most fascinating exchange took place on Radio 4's Today programme this morning.

Kasper Holten was there to pimp the Royal Opera House's imminent live-ish streaming day. But he perhaps hadn't reckoned with the bloodhound instincts of one of the few proper journalists left at the BBC, Today presenter James Naughtie.

The full interview, which you can listen to here, begins at about 16:00. Zip forward to 22:15 for the following:

Barely Don

Christopher Maltman's botty receives a rare public airing on 9 January when Kasper Holten's Don Giovanni-based movie Juan is screened at the Royal College of Music's Britten Theatre.

Warning for purists - this is a film based on the opera, not a film of the opera, so about half the music is cut - and it's sung in English

Tickets are £10 from the RCM website.

A preview:

Kasper Holten's offer

There are now well over 100 comments on the two posts about Jonas Kaufmann's cancellations. 

And one of them comes from Kasper Holten, who is "happy to offer a little masochism [but not a refund, naturellement] by repeating how sorry we are about all the recent cast changes". Read more of what he had to say here.

Kasper Holten's Juan on the big screen

Kasper Holten's Don Giovanni-based movie Juan comes to the Playhouse Cinema in Louth on 17 May.

With a special guest! Its star Christopher Maltman, "an internally renowned opera singer" will be on hand for a Q&A session after the screening.

Though whether Lincolnshire opera lovers will be able to look him in the eye after staring at his botty for 90 minutes is debatable.

Here's a preview:

Kasper Holten's Lohengrin opens in Berlin

Wings and nighties all present and correct. Tonight is the premiere of Kasper Holten's first production since he became Director of Opera at Covent Garden - but it's not in London.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin's Lohengrin features in the title role Klaus Florian Vogt, who stepped in at late notice to replace Marco Jentzsch. Ricarda Merbeth is Elsa, Petra Lang is Ortrud, Gordon Hawkins is Telramund and Albert Dohmen is Heinrich. More photos below.

 

Kasper Holten to succeed Elaine Padmore at Royal Opera House

 

Having reached an age you'd never guess from her recent photo below, the Royal Opera House's Head of Opera, Elaine Padmore, is set to retire at the end of this season.

Her replacement is Kasper Holten, currently Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen (coincidentally, the position Padmore held before her Royal Opera House appointment).

Holten announced in 2009 his decision not to renew his Copenhagen contract when it expires in July 2011, and since then he has written and directed Juan, a movie based on Mozart's Don Giovanni. He is also an opera director in his own right, best known internationally for the Copenhagen Ring. It's not clear at this stage whether he plans to direct any productions for the Royal Opera House, but I wouldn't be surprised.

His contract with the Royal Opera House runs to 2016.

UPDATE - check out the ROH press release for more background.