On 19 May, the Bavarian State Opera website will be streaming I Capuleti e i Montecchi live - and free.
Vincent Boussard's stylish production, which I saw last year, features Vesselina Kasarova and Anna Netrebko as Romeo and Juliet. The sumptuous Christian Lacroix costumes are worth tuning in for all by themselves.
Streaming begins at 7pm CET (6pm UK).
| | |
|
When Vesselina Kasarova, Queen of Pants, signed up for this production (which premiered in March), there was some talk of it being her last-ever Romeo. However she's booked to return next year with Anna Netrebko, so perhaps she's not hanging up her boots just yet. And why should she? She still has all the notes. And her dashing Romeo convincingly displays the uncertainties of youth, whatever the calendar says.
| | |
|
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.
| | |
|
Alcina - Barbican, 4 December 2010
This was billed as a concert performance of Handel's Alcina, but it wasn't one of those nose-in-book affairs. With the musicians and most of the cast fresh from a fully-staged version at Vienna's Staatsoper (the first baroque opera there in 40 years!), the awkwardly wide Barbican stage was put to good use for once. Singers sang to each other not their scores, toyed with improbable props (a sheet of paper for an urn....please), and faux 18th century settees were distributed on either side of an orchestra twice the size of Handel's. But then Marc Minkowski's approach to period performance has never been the emaciated doctrinaire type. Vibrato was flaunted, instrumental soloists stepped up front to do their bit.
| | |
|
Krassimira Stoyanova / Vesselina Kasarova / Jendrik Springer - National Theatre Munich, 20 July 2010
Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova joined Bulgarian mezzo Vesselina Kasarova last night for perhaps the least intimate lieder recital I've ever been to. Even from the second row of the stalls, the huge orchestra pit of the National Theatre created a gulf that was never quite bridged. It didn't help that both singers were firmly lodged behind both music stands and recording microphones all night. They consulted their music frequently - another barrier - I wondered if they simply hadn't rehearsed quite enough. Goodness knows what it was like from the top deck.
| | |
|
Recent Comments