Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

Toronto based lover of opera, art song, related music and all forms of theatre.

La Belle Helène in Paris

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When I reviewed the 1997 Zurich production of La Belle Helène about a week ago the commentariat was strong in the belief that I should take a look at the 2000 Paris-Châtelet production.  So I did and they were right.  It’s excellent.  It also reinforced my belief that operetta; English, French or German, works best when it’s taken seriously by which I mean using the best available singer/actors, a good director and a top notch orchestra, chorus and conductor.  All of these are in place in this Paris production. Continue reading →

Birgit Nilsson’s Elektra

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I grew up with the Solti Ring and Nilsson’s Immolation Scene still makes the hair on my neck bristle.  The 1980 video recording of her performance in the title role of Strauss’ Elektra at the Metropolitan Opera really doesn’t have the same effect.  The voice is accurate enough, there’s still a lot of power and the vocal acting is good but somehow the voice seems to have hollowed out and to lack resonance.  Admittedly she’s not helped by the recording which seems to favour the orchestra over the voices fairly consistently.  The other sopranos suffer from the acoustic/recording too but come off better and if Leonie Rysanek really had a high fever it’s not obvious.  Mignon Dunn’s Clytemnestra is also well sung.  The orchestra plays wonderfully for James Levine and gets much better treatment from the sound engineers. Continue reading →

Rod Gilfry is Saint Francis

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Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise is an astonishing piece of music theatre and Pierre Audi’s Amsterdam staging of it is equally extraordinary.  There is very little “plot”.  The work consists of eight loosely linked tableaux taken from 16th century accounts of St. Francis’ life and ministry.  There is theology and leprosy and ornithology and it goes on for four and a quarter hours.  It ought not to work but it does.  Continue reading →

La cosa vostra?

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If you are a fan of bel canto comedies you will probably enjoy the 2009 Glyndeboure production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore quite a lot.

Director Annabel Arden sets this bucolic comedy in the Italian countryside of the 1950s (though some of the iconography is more appropriate to the Mussolini period).  It has some of the look, but little of the edge of Italian neo-realist cinema.  It does though take the work fairly seriously with a Dulcamara who is isn’t the obvious quack we usually see but just hints at having real powers.  Dulcemara also acquires a rather bizarre mute assistant.  Beyond that it’s all carefully staged with the chorus action well directed and performed. Continue reading →

Existence is futile

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I think my good luck run with Offenbach just ran out.  I really didn’t enjoy the 1991 Opéra National de Lyon production of La Vie Parisienne.  The productions of La Belle Helène and Orphée aux Enfers which I reviewed last week were very much performances by operatic forces letting their hair down; comparable, perhaps, to ENO doing Gilbert and Sullivan. The Lyon La Vie Parisienne seems to come out of an entirely different performing tradition. Continue reading →

A fun La Belle Helène from Zurich

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Having had a lot of fun with the Lyon recording of Orphée aux Enfers I decided to try and track down some more Offenbach operetta and managed to find a Zurich recording of La Belle Helène conducted, perhaps surprisingly, by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

It’s not perhaps as wildly funny as the Orphée nor perhaps does it have as many memorable tunes but it’s good fun in an undemanding (at least for the audience) sort of way.  The Zurich production, by Helmut Lohner, is painted in pretty broad brush strokes.  The costumes a re very colourful, a bit silly and most have writing on them, much of it, oddly, in English.  The thunder machine is positively Heath Robinsonish.  There’s lots of stage action and fairly silly dancing around.  It’s all very fast paced and doesn’t take itself too seriously despite the sleeve notes leading one to expect more in the way of social satire.  Harnoncourt is obviously having a whale of a time and occasionally gets caught up in the stage action rather as he does in the Salzburg King Arthur.  Continue reading →

Which way do you dress?

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Last night I attended the dress rehearsal of the Canadian Opera Company’s upcoming double bill of Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi courtesy of Peter McGillivray who sings Marco in the latter. I’ve never been to s dress rehearsal before and I don’t think it’s kosher to “review” a production based on one so I’m going to concentrate on the “dress rehearsal experience” and just a few notes about the show. Continue reading →

Scintillating Il Turco in Italy from Zurich

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I don’t suppose anybody watches a Rossini comedy for profundity or great insights into human nature but there’s no denying that done well they can be great fun.  This 2002 performance of Il Turco in Italia from the Opernhaus Zürich certainly manages to be that.

The basic plot is predictably silly and full of stock characters; gypsies, flirty young wife, dim older husband, lecherous Turk etc. but wrapped around this is the idea of a poet who is recording what he is seeing as the basis for a new play while, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, trying to influence the action to meet his needs.  It’s quite clever and often very funny.

Continue reading →

Amici Ensemble – Season close and new season announcement

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Yesterday I attended the final concert of the 2011/12 season of the Amici Ensemble at the Glenn Gould Studio courtesy of Executive Director Lizzie Bowman.

It was my first time at the Glenn Gould and I was impressed by the space.  It’s pretty much ideal for chamber music.  They also have Glenn Gould’s childhood piano on display which is another addition to Toronto’s collection of secular relics.  There is a book or thesis at least in that topic.

The concert was a varied mix of pieces from the first third of the 20th century.  That’s pretty much a sweet spot for me as it’s pretty much where I discovered classical music.  My first classical LP purchase was of the Janáček string quartets.  Some of the music I was very familiar with.  Some was quite unknown to me.  Also, the ensemble was different for each piece.  It made for an interesting afternoon.  Continue reading →

How to write an opera review for a Toronto newspaper

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The following quick guide to how to write an opera review for one of Toronto’s (inexplicably) prestigious newspapers is based on extensive analysis of the same.  Given that those papers seem hell bent on sacking anybody with actual knowledge of the arts it is felt that such a guide might prove useful to, say, the Gardening Correspondent, when he or she finds that they have been assigned to cover an opera. Continue reading →