Intermezzo

How to get a head in opera

Salome - Royal Opera House, 31 May 2012

I wish I could be more positive about this revival, but in all honesty it was looking shabby even on the first night. Angela Denoke's otherwise convincing Salome sounded tired and off-pitch, not a patch on her 2010 run. Egils Silins (Jokanaan) lacked power and presence, and the Herod and Herodias of Stig Andersen and Rosalind Plowright were under-characterised. In a Rupert the horse-style coup, the terrifying (and silent) Executioner (Duncan Meadows, above) pretty much stole the show.  

Even Andris Nelsons, a generally reliable conductor of Strauss, fell short of his usual standards. The playing didn't lack energy, but it was short on detail and too often the orchestra seemed under-rehearsed. At least that's one area that might improve over the run. 

McVicar hospitalises soprano

According to the Sunday Times (£££), Aleksandra Kurzak was recently hospitalised after a Nozze di Figaro rehearsal at the Royal Opera House. David McVicar, standing in for Count Almaviva, "had pressed his charms on her a little too energetically in rehearsal, so she had fallen backwards and hit her head on the piano."

Afterwards McVicar "was hugely apologetic and bought her a lovely present".

Britain's greatest opera director pimps some product

Above, David McVicar discusses his new Adriana Lecouvreur with the Guardian. Includes a few live clips.

s3x & violets

As befits a production which will journey to San Francisco and Vienna, David McVicar's new Adriana Lecouvreur is as conservative as David Cameron holding hands with Boris Johnson in a Margaret Thatcher t-shirt. The stage-within-a-stage set is revolutionary only in the sense that it turns round, though I suppose some might regard that as innovation.  Deprived by the pesky libretto of the opportunity to slip in one of his customary orgies, McVicar's only remotely adult tableau consists of a few actresses in eighteenth century underthings. Instead he gets down to the business of telling the story with minimal fannying around.

Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House

Rigoletto - Royal Opera House, 11 October 2010

Viewing the gaudy corpse of a once-magnificent Zeffirelli production on the Met stage can make you wonder why his work was once considered bold and daring. Yet look at some of the frozen-in-youtube performances, the ones he actually, personally, directed – the famous Callas/Gobbi Tosca for example – and you sense the hand of a theatrical master. The difference between then and now of course is that then he was there to shape every detail of the performances. Over the years they’ve become debased and diluted by a series of indifferent in-house directors and all we see now are the vast, vulgar sets and the preposterous costumery.

Is David McVicar’s theatrical legacy headed the same way?

Aida reviews roll in

Opinions, everybody's got one. Here are the reviews in so far for the Royal Opera House's new David McVicar Aida:

Edward Seckerson, the Independent - "It isn’t pretty but it’s a whole lot more pertinent than the picture book inspired Cecil B. DeMille approach" 4 stars

Andrew Clements, the Guardian - "the boos for the production team at the final curtain were aimed at the wrong target" 3 stars

Richard Morrison, the Times - "although the conductor Nicola Luisotti doesn’t always obtain perfect rapport, I liked his verve and his swashbuckling speeds. It made a disappointing evening shorter" 2 stars

Barry Millington, the Evening Standard - "I haven’t seen so much bare flesh since — well, McVicar’s last production" 3 stars

William Hartston, the Express - "a splendid evening of Verdi's greatest music, complete with all the mystic rituals and human sacrifices that make up Ancient Egypt, and some brilliantly energetic choreography" 4/5

George Hall, the Stage - "it certainly packs a theatrical punch and covers the emotional and intellectual terrain of the piece with easy assurance"

Jenny Beeston, What's on Stage - "It's not always visually coherent, but you can't complain there's nothing to look at" 3 stars

Igor Toronyi-Lalic, the Arts Desk - "McVicar at his best and worst"

Dominic McHugh, musicalcriticism.com - "the lack of purpose, the ugliness of the sets and the clashes of style prevent this from becoming an ROH classic" 3 stars

Alexander Campbell, classicalsource.com - "it felt as if the energy spent on trying to do something conceptually new had resulted in a rather traditional staging but in a different setting"

Reuters - "a production which divided a packed audience on the first night late on Tuesday"

Late runners:

Andrew Clark, Financial Times - "What’s so disappointing about McVicar’s approach in this production is how old-fashioned it is; worse than that, it is tempting to feel that he has exploited Aida’s status as a box-office cert purely for his own gratification" 1 star

David Gillard, Daily Mail - "There's no denying that McVicar's staging has moments of high-octane energy and real theatrical flair, but the gloom is unremitting and the evening's finest moments are musical ones" 2 stars

And a few interviews:

Nicola Luisotti talks to What's on Stage

Micaela Carosi (Aida) talks to Opera Today

Marcelo Alvarez (Radames) talks to the Times

I understand David McVicar may be talking to Tom Service on Radio 3's Music Matters on Saturday 1 May. But it's not showing on the schedules and I can't remember who told me, so I could conceivably be making this up.