Intermezzo

Vepres Siciliennes, at last

Les vêpres siciliennes - Royal Opera House, 17 October 2013 (first night)

It's preposterously plotted, dramatically unbalanced and musically uneven. It needs four exceptional singers, an expensively oversized chorus, and a ballet company. No wonder Covent Garden has never staged Les vêpres siciliennes until now.

If any opera justifies the knackered old theatre-within-a-theatre concept, this is the one. Most of the work's faults are directly attributable to the strictures of grand opéra under whichVerdi laboured. The expectations of the premiere's Parisian audience too  - girls, glamour, gargantuan length - contributed to the shape of the final work.

Anna Netrebko isn't reading this

Anna Netrebko discloses in an interview that she's happy without a computer, and wouldn't know how to turn one on. In fact, she's never looked at her own website.

She told the Kronen Zeitung that Erwin Schrott googled her once and came up with "Netrebko has got really fat and has no voice". After that, she realised it was better to avoid computers altogether.

She's advised her Twitter-addicted blogger of an other half to do the same, because it exhausts his energy when he get angry at what's been written. Good advice for all singers (and opera directors) I think.

Pectacular Don

Don Giovanni - Royal Opera House, 21 February 2012

Francesca Zambello's witless, charmless, tasteless production hasn't improved with age. But great performers can redeem even the most idiotic of stagings - and frequently have to in these parts. If Erwin Schrott isn't the finest Don Giovanni around right now I'll eat my pants. Yours too.

Anna and Erwin say auf Wiedersehn to Dresden

Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott have withdrawn from their long-booked 2011 New Year's Eve and 30 December concerts at Dresden Semperoper, citing insufficient preparation time.

Having successfully stepped into last year's Dresden concerts with less than a week's notice, the excuse is an unexpected one.

They apparently hope the programme of of Franz Lehar operetta highlights can be rescheduled at a later date. That's a grain of comfort to ticket holders for the long sold out shows.

But the solution won't help the ZDF channel. They're due to broadcast the New Year's Eve concert in fierce competition with rivals ARD, who've snaffled the Berlin Phil. It's not clear at this stage whether ZDF had finalised contractual arrangements with Netrebko and Schrott.

Their replacements are Angela Denoke and Ana Maria Labin.

Anna is Erwin's woman (but she likes a bit of Jonas on the side)

Not nearly as toecurling as it could have been - bravo/a/i for trying.

That was perhaps the most experimental selection in the stream of greatest operatic hits at Anna and Erwin's blockbuster Waldbühne concert on Tuesday evening. Jonas Kaufmann joined them, and the entire highly-priced extravaganza was broadcast on the German channel ZDF.

You can watch the whole thing on ZDF's website (not all countries), or enjoy a few choice excerpts below.

Mortgage the garden shed and perhaps you too could catch them live in the Royal Albert Hall next year.

Netrebko / Kaufmann / Schrott at Royal Albert Hall

 

Don't all rush at once! But if you've got a couple of hundred quid to spare, you might fancy spending it on a blockbuster date with Anna Netrebko, Erwin Schrott and Jonas Kaufmann. They're coming to the Royal Albert Hall on 6 June 2012 for "a superb gala of their favourite arias and music by Puccini, Verdi, Mozart and many more".

Promoters Raymond Gubbay have set prices from £25 in the corner of the side circle, where you will see virtually nothing, to £185 for a grand tier box seat, and tickets are on sale now.

Makes Jonas's £75 Royal Festival Hall date in October sound a positive bargain.

(via Carlos)