https://operawire.com/an-update-on-our-websites-recent-technological-issues/
Dear Readers, Over the course of the past few days, you may have noticed that OperaWire has not functioned properly. In truth, the website has grown so quickly that it was too big for the server that we were hosting it on. From one day to the next the website simply was impossible to access. Once we were aware of {…}
https://operawire.com/royal-opera-house-2017-2018-review-lohengrin-christine-goerke-shines-among-solid-cast-as-half-awoken-myths-stay-in-the-wartime-trenches-of-reality/
Its preludes are themselves landmarks of beauty – but Wagner’s 1850 opera “Lohengrin” is a prelude to his future epics. Rooted in Arthurian legend, taking the son of King Parsifal as its hero, and featuring prayers to the pagan gods Wotan and Freia, it is another battle between the divine and the mortal. In mythical medieval Brabant, Count Friedrich von {…}
https://operawire.com/deutsche-oper-berlin-2017-18-review-nabucco-keith-warners-printing-press-production-needs-serious-editing/
With over 150 opera productions to his credit, British director Keith Warner is hardly a neophyte in the lyric theatre. The mystery is how this respected regisseur could have made such a muddle out of “Nabucco” for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. After all, it is not so difficult to stage Verdi’s first great operatic triumph. Jean-Paul Scarpitta managed to come {…}
https://operawire.com/deutsche-oper-berlin-2017-18-review-la-traviata-kristina-mkhitaryans-outstanding-violetta-gains-the-russian-soprano-prima-donna-assoluta-status/
The Deutsche Oper Berlin has long been a mecca for iconoclast regie theater directors ranging from Hans Neuenfels and Claus Guth to Ole Anders Tandberg, whose recent staging of “Carmen” had more viscera on the stage than verismo. Curiously, the extant production of “La Traviata” by the former Deutsche Oper Intendant Götz Friedrich, dating back to 1999, is surprisingly uncontroversial. In his {…}
https://operawire.com/kaufmann-four-last-songs/
He was wonderful. He sang with artistry. He sang with heart. He made you feel as if you understood even more than the words, as if you understood worlds when mainly you were listening to a foreign tongue, written by a composer of 70 years before, writing from within a worldview that hardly now exists. Jonas Kaufmann was at the {…}
https://operawire.com/houston-grand-opera-2017-18-review-norma-liudmyla-monastyrska-jamie-barton-triumph-in-bellinis-masterpiece/
The great German soprano Lilli Lehmann once famously remarked that singing all three Brünnhildes in Wagner’s Ring Cycle , which equals about eight hours of singing, was less taxing than a single performance of Bellini’s “Norma.” Indeed, a great “Norma” certainly doesn’t grow on trees, and in any given generation there are maybe a handful of singers who can tackle {…}
https://operawire.com/teatro-real-de-madrid-2017-18-gloriana-anna-caterina-antonacci-david-mcvicar-team-up-for-sensational-revival-of-neglected-britten-work/
Benjamin Britten’s “Gloriana” was supposed to be one of his great triumphs. The composer himself is quoted, prior to its premiere in 1953, that he saw it as his best work to that point (he had already written “Billy Budd” and “Peter Grimes,” mind you). It was composed for the regal occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. It was one {…}
https://operawire.com/vienna-state-opera-2017-18-review-parsifal-alvis-hermanis-madhouse-production-will-drive-you-crazy-not-in-a-good-way/
Richard Wagner was a 19th century micro-manager in music long before the pejorative appellation appeared in MBA curricula. As his own librettist, casting director, set designer, costume conceptualist, lighting Loge and Dirigent, there was rarely any aspect of his music dramas which Wagner was prepared to relinquish to lesser talents. No composition was more tightly controlled than his ultimate opus “Parsifal,” which {…}
https://operawire.com/into-the-amazon-soprano-elaine-alvarez-on-san-diego-debut-evolving-voice-career/
Elaine Alvarez always knew she was destined for the stage. Or if she didn’t, her mother Yasmin Alvarez certainly did. The soprano, who is slated to make her role debut in “Florencia en el Amazonas” at the San Diego Opera (her house debut, incidentally) grew up in a musical atmosphere that nurtured this potential. In a recent interview with OperaWire {…}