Intermezzo

Bursting the bubble

If you've seen Keith Warner's Wozzeck, you've seen one of the most spectacular special effects ever staged in the Royal Opera House. Whose jaw has not dropped at the sight of Simon Keenlyside immersed motionless in a tank full of water for several minutes? In front of 2,000+ people, after 90 hectic minutes on stage?

Many of you will have worked out the sneaky secret behind the stunt, but judging by my emails it seems not everyone.

So here - using only legit production photos to demonstrate - is how it's done.

I appreciate not everyone wants their illusions shattered, so IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW, STOP READING HERE.

Wozzeck returns

Wozzeck - Royal Opera House, 31 October 2013

I didn't think it was possible to screw up Wozzeck until I saw Carrie Cracknell's 'post-Iraq' ENO production earlier this year, a misreading that replaced the general with the specific, paranoia with logic, angst with social conscience, playing up to the London audience's TV-nourished passion for simple storylines in ultra-realistic settings, no matter how the underlying work is betrayed.

Keith Warner's 2002 ROH production is not perfect, but at least we see that Wozzeck's crisis is an existential one, not a social problem that can be solved by a few quid and a bit of counselling.

Rolando Villazon gets chopped in half

Get half price tickets for Rolando at the Royal Festival Hall on 15 May with a Time Out offer.

The discount is only valid on the bottom three price bands (no front stalls), and you don't get to pick your seat. Prices after discount run from £21 to £34.

Time Out also have a half price offer for ENO's Wozzeck (dress circle and upper circle seats only).

Is the earth still flat?

Rupert '1-star' Goold has decided against a return to ENO, where he made his much-derided opera-directing debut with Turandot in 2009. Apparently he is prioritising his film commitments instead. Opera's loss is cinema's......whatever.

Replacing him as director of Wozzeck next May is Carrie Cracknell, former artistic director of the Gate Theatre - yet another theatrical luminary with no evidenced interest, let alone experience, in opera.

We shall see.

Wozzup?

Wozzeck - Metropolitan Opera, 6 April 2011(season premiere)

The most moving moment in this brief evening came before a note had been played. As James Levine entered the pit for the first time in over a month, it seemed as if the cheers and applause might never stop. Still visibly suffering from the chronic back pain that sidelined him recently, the Met's revered maestro turned to acknowledge the audience with his hand over his heart. The scenario played out again at the end of the evening. Levine remained in the pit for his ovation, presumably too frail to ascend to the stage for a bow.

off the wall

Here are few of the posters the Bavarian State Opera plastered around Munich's opera house last week (more here):