(Photo credit: © ROH 2024/Tristram Kenton) Had a family bust-up over the holidays? Don’t worry – it could be worse. Richard Strauss’ “Elektra,” with a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal from his 1903 play of the same, took a dysfunctional family of the opera stage to new extremes, boiling up Sophocles’ tale of matricide in the Freudian pressure cooker of {…}
(Credit: Royal Opera) I suppose anything with “Destiny” in the title will always be a bit profound. In fact, “La Forza” is about as profound and gloomy, if not downright dark as it gets, even by Verdi’s standards. At around four and a half hours, it’s also his longest work. It’s a story of love, death, and revenge. Mainly revenge. {…}
Photo: © Genevieve Girling Christof Loy’s new production of “Tosca” for English National Opera, which first appeared in Helsinki in 2018, replaces Catherine Malfitano’s show, which received two revivals during its tenure and last appeared on the Coliseum stage in 2016. The production sees Leo Hussain return to the Coliseum pit – a distinguished Music Director of Opéra de Rouen and {…}
(Credits: GoDirect Artists Management official website / Pia Clodi / Linda Rabisch) After a six-month hiatus, the Theater an der Wien – Das Opernhaus will open its doors to the public on Sep. 16 2020 with a new production of Leoncavallo’s opera “Zazà.” The performance will star Svetlana Aksenova, Christopher Maltman, Dorothea Herbert, Nikolai Schukoff, Enkelejda Shkosa, Juliette Mars, Tobias {…}
(Credits: Michael Cooper / www.codalario.com) Ópera XXI de España has announced that it will present its awards ceremony in a virtual event which will be held on October 25, 2020. The ceremony was initially planned for March 2020, but had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Ópera XXI de España has been working on the new {…}
Before German baritone, composer, and instrumentalist Johannes Martin Kränzle joined the ranks of singers, he studied violin and directed music theater in Hamburg. The baritone studied voice with Martin Gründler and began his operatic career at such venues as Theater Dortmund, Staatsoper Hannover, and the ensemble of Oper Frankfurt. Since then, Kränzle has sung at the Metropolitan Opera; the Royal Opera House; {…}
(Credit: SF/ Anne Zeuner) Mozart and Da Ponte’s opera “Così fan tutte” will make its way onto the big stage of the Grosses Festspielhaus at the Salzburg Festival 2020 starting on August 2, 2020. Given the complex nature of things due to continued concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, the production was a daunting task for everyone, primarily the director Christof {…}
Frankfurt Opera has ended co-production of “Norma” with director Sigrid Strøm Reibo and the Norske Opera Oslo. The company announced that due to artistic reasons the company would not present Reibo’s production. It would have been the Norwegian director’s international debut. As a result, the company announced that Christof Loy, whose productions have won numerous awards, would take over and direct {…}