Intermezzo

Royal Opera House 2009/10 season - all the details

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) makes its first visit to Covent Garden in March with Christianne Stoijn, Sara Mingardo and Christine Schäfer. Baroque specialist Ivor Bolton conducts.

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.

Don Giovanni rides yet again - this time it's Mariusz Kwiecien's show

Don Giovanni - Royal Opera House, 4 October 2008

Pologies for not writing about this sooner, but truly, Mariusz Kwiecien, hawtest Don Giovanni since Erwin Schrott, burned up my SD storage so bad I've only just been able to rescue the precious pixels. His Don is not the cerebral manipulator that Simon Keenlyside offered us in the earlier cast of this production. Instead, "He has something that fits in every woman," as Mariusz explained his feral chancer in a highly entertaining ROH pre-match interview - where, incidentally, he noted his preference as a listener for live performance (yay!) over CDS - "if I see something good, I copy it!". But that's one of the great things about Mozart's conception of Don Giovanni - a hundred different approaches will all work, in their own way.

With this less aristocratic Don came a less sharply-drawn contrast between the noble seducer and his craven aide, Leporello. This didn't work to the advantage of Alex Esposito, whose performance wasn't always as focused as it could have been - tentative with the brash physical comedy and not always totally in line with the orchestra. But he's not without talent, and I suspect he'd impress more in a production less reliant on brainless vulgarity than this one.

The tiny Patrizia Ciofi simply didn't have the clout, physically or vocally, to make anything much of the steely Donna Anna, pretty though her singing was. A miscast. Ian Bostridge, on the other hand, was a near-perfect Don Ottavio. He has famously complained that Mozart tenor roles are 'boring', and his performance led me to agree. But shouldn't Don Ottavio be dull? We need some reason to find Donna Anna's ultimate rejection of him credible. Beautifully sung, anyhow.

The best physical casting came with the pairing of the huge, lumbering Levente Molnár as Masetto and petite Rebecca Evans as Zerlina. They didn't have the knowing chemistry of Robert Gleadow and Miah Persson in the earlier cast - this was a much more traditional interpretation. But Rebecca Evans was winningly sweet and technically faultless, a delight to listen to, and Molnár convincingly lunkish.

Emma Bell's Donna Elvira was convincing in hysterical fury, less so in contrition, and didn't quite make all the notes. But where in the earlier casting the inevitable focus on Joyce DiDonato's stunning Donna Elvira had perhaps not worked to the advantage of the show as a whole, here the balance was redressed, and it became Don Giovanni's story once more.

 

  

 

  

Patrick Stewart takes command of USS Wigmore

Emanuel Ax, Emma Bell, Patrick Stewart - Wigmore Hall, 28 June 2007

Richard Strauss: Freundliche Vision, Das Rosenband, Nachtgang, Muttertändelei, Morgen, Fünf Klavierstücke Op. 3 (Nos. 1 & 4), Zueignung, Du meines Herzens Krönelein, Traum durch die Dämmerung, Schlechtes Wetter, Enoch Arden Op. 38

What an odd night this was. A real game of two halves, linked by pianist Emanuel Ax and composer Richard Strauss. In the first, we had the fabulous soprano Emma Bell, with a programme of Strauss lieder. And in the second, Patrick Stewart tackled Strauss's rarely performed Enoch Arden, a 'melodrama', or story narrated with piano accompaniment.

Emma Bell's enormous voice and impeccable technical control made everything she sang sound easy, even though much of it really wasn't. The dark edge to her full, bright sound gave the more lyrical pieces colour and depth. The couple of notionally 'comic' songs she tried didn't come off quite as well, her goggle eyed sauciness not enough to rise above the anachronistic humour. I would have preferred if she'd played to her strengths and replaced these with something darker and more dramatic. But her half-length recital still left me wanting more.

Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden is the story of a sailor thought drowned at sea who returns home after several years to find that his wife has remarried. Seeing her contentment, he hides that he is alive and sacrifices his happiness for hers. Richard Strauss composed a fairly scanty piano accompaniment, which appears only at the most dramatic moments. For much of the 45 minute-odd reading of the poem, the piano is silent. When it does come in, it's in snatches of atmospheric themes, not in architecturally-crafted pieces. This music was not designed to stand alone without the text, and it probably couldn't. Seen purely in musical terms, it's almost a failure before it starts. That may be why quite a few seats in the Wigmore Hall emptied at the interval without even giving Patrick Stewart a try.

But if there's anyone who could make even the telephone directory sound interesting, it's Patrick Stewart. It's that rich resonant chocolate velvet voice, a musical instrument in itself. His reading was clear and beautifully paced, and he handled the quaint victorianisms of the text deftly. The story grew more spellbinding as he spun it, with Strauss's cunningly placed piano interludes accentuating the drama, though Emanuel Ax was unfortunately tempted to thunder through some of his accompaniment, nearly drowning out Stewart.

Whatever the quality of the performances though, for most of the time it felt like watching a radio show being made. Recording of course wasn't a real option in Strauss's day, but for a piece with this level of theatrical impact that would be a more sensible home.

La Clemenza di Tito Dress Rehearsal

La Clemenza di Tito (dress rehearsal) - ENO, 5 June 2007

Photo: Laurie Lewis

I didn't catch this much-hyped production when it debuted a couple of years ago. But I came away today feeling I hadn't missed much.

Not at all the fault of the singers - although it was only a dress rehearsal, there was little to criticise here. Alice Coote's impassioned Sesto was a highlight despite the fact that she was recovering from a cold. The part of Vitellia demands a broad tessitura, and poor Emma Bell was forced to growl the deepest notes in an otherwise thrilling and lucid performance. Paul Nilon brought a human side to the rather baldly drawn role of Tito, though he didn't have that truly imperial charisma, and was vocally rather constricted at times. And the secondary roles were handled with energy and conviction. The orchestra too, led by Edward Gardner, were elegant and precise, with some beautiful clarinet work. Only the chorus, singing from the pit, sounded rather limp.

The design was more problematical. It begins with a nearly bare set in shadowed gloom. Curved orientalist panels are cleverly set into the stage revolve and periodically slid and twisted into various configurations. These surround a stunted little garden centre tree. The construction is ingenious but the concept ultimately too banal to retain interest for the entire performance. And I loathe a darkened stage, so I was dying for someone to turn the lights up, but it never happened.

The only visual break from the tedious glide of panels across stage were a couple of strange dancer interludes. In the first, the imperial guard in the form of a gang of baton twirling ninjas prance across the stage in formation, then disappear. They pop up again later, this time a portentous plod with a tray of nightlights. Immaculately executed and admittedly entertaining on both counts, but really nothing to do with the music or the drama.

The crepuscular minimalism of the design should have at least focussed attention on the performers, but they were largely static and often inadequately spotlit, holding attention only with the quality of their singing. A couple of nights back I saw Cheek by Jowl's Cymbeline at the Barbican, where a lot more is done with a lot less, simply by keeping the action moving fluidly and intelligently, and, most importantly, framing it in an overall structure. This Tito had nothing to say - it was just a moment we'd walked in on and walked away from. Mozart gave it a clear beginning and end, moments of great drama and moments of intimacy, which simply weren't reflected in David McVicar's one-note production. Only the fabulous musical performances made it worth seeing.