(Photos Brescia – Amisano © Teatro alla Scala) What began as a creative solution during the pandemic– a small-scale stage production, with no audience, zero budget, and streamed online– returns in 2025 to Teatro alla Scala in all its theatrical splendor. “The Weill Triptych,” staged by Irina Brook and musically directed by Riccardo Chailly, now comes back in an expanded {…}
(Photo: Peter Hislop) The period when European composers moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, fleeing Hitler for the most part, is an incredibly rich one in musical history. There is so much relevant repertoire, and it’s somewhat surprising that this era has not formed more of a basis for concert programming. Musica Viva Australia deserves credit for their concert {…}
Photo: © Jean-Louis Fernandez When a ticket to “The Threepenny Opera” costs three hundred euros, it is already evident that someone has not read Brecht properly. Thomas Ostemeier, the director of this Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill “opera,” is an interesting figure. German by birth, he has been very popular in Paris for his work with the traditional company Comédie {…}
(Photo: Teatro Municipale Valli) Weill and Brecht had major disagreements over the meaning and location of their opera “Aufstieg und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny.” While Brecht saw it as a criticism of the evils of capitalism, for Weill, it was more an exploration of human greed, which for many people, with only a superficial understanding of the word capitalism, amounts {…}
(Credit: Royal Opera House official website) The Royal Opera House Covent Garden has announced that it will reopen for live audiences on May 17, 2021. For the grand reopening, the Royal Opera House is planning to stage Mozart’s opera “La Clemenza di Tito” in a new production directed by Richard Jones. Mark Wigglesworth will conduct. The opera house also announced {…}
The City Lyric Opera in New York will present a new production of Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” from Oct. 29 to Nov. 15, 2020. The piece is based on “The Beggar’s Opera” by John Gay, and being performed in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann. The opera will be produced through both live and recorded performances for the {…}
