I’m actually not sure where to start with Stephen Lawless’ production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette recorded at the Liceu in 2018. The production is a bit weird but then so is the libretto. It follows the basic plot of Shakespeare’s play but weakens it dramatically in all the wrong places which appears to be why Lawless made some of his, to my mind, less felicitous decisions.
I don’t really associate Bryn Terfel with bel canto comedies but why not? He’s a good actor and he’s certainly funny in recitals so why not in opera? So, what’s he like in the title role of the production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale recorded at Covent Garden in 2019? Short answer, excellent, and pretty much everything about the show is highly satisfactory.
Back in 2015 I reviewed a 2006 recording from the Royal Opera House of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro directed by David McVicar. It’s very good and has a super starry cast; Finley, Persson, Röschmann, Schrott, Shaham. There’s even a cameo by Philip Langridge as Basilio. So, when I saw that a new recording of the same production, made in 2022 with a young and less obviously starry cast, had been released I was in two minds whether to bother. I’m glad I did.
Ernani is an early Verdi opera (1844) and it’s not performed that often (16th most performed Verdi opera according to Operabase). It was given at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2022, in a production by Leo Muscato, which was recorded for video release. How you react to it may partly depend on how you feel about bel canto operas on (more or less) serious themes. This is an opera about unrequited love and revenge (lots of revenge) but, in typical bel canto style, the music doesn’t always fit the mood. So here we open on a prelude where Ernani’s bandit gang are sorting out the corpses from their latest skirmish while the orchestra plays a rather jolly tune, then they break into a drinking song and then Ernani enters and sings a rather lovely cavatina. There are places where the music is darker and some of it is really rather good. In particular there are some strong duets for Ernani and his (everyone’s) love interest Elvira. Overall, I rather liked it musically.
Humperdinck’s second “fairy tale” opera; Königskinder, is unusual in that, although it includes traditional fairy tale elements, it isn’t based on a traditional fairy tale but rather on a play by Else Bernstein-Porges. It’s, of course, also performed much less frequently than Hänsel und Gretel. It was given at Dutch National Opera, in a production by Christof Loy, in 2022 and recorded for video release.
Opera is full of patriarchy. It’s a bit odd then that Leoš Janáček wrote two operas about dominating matriarchs and the consequences of their actions. The better known of the two is probably Jenůfa but the later Kát’a Kabanová deals with similar themes. Both are bleak and have watery endings.
It’s quite rare nowadays to stage all three Il Trittico operas in one evening and it will probably get rarer as financial pressures force shorter shows. Nonetheless it was done in Salzburg in 2022 in productions by Christof Loy. The USP was having Asmik Grigorian sing all three principal soprano roles so, not unreasonably, the usual order was switched up with Gianni Schicchi coming first and Suor Angelica closing things out. Unsurprisingly, and as intended, the evening increasingly became the Grigorian show as each opera succeeded the previous one.
No, not a pandemic piss-up at No.10 but a newly released recording of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov recorded at Covent Garden in 2016. Funnily enough I remember Bryn Terfel, who plays the Tsar, alluding to learning the role during his Koerner Hall recital in April of that year.
A video recording of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex is a bit of an oddball really. It’s quite short (55 minutes) and it’s an oratorio rather than an opera. I guess it could be staged but the version recorded at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2022 isn’t. It’s a concert setting, in concert dress, with music stands. There’s not even minimal blocking.
Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz might be the perfect antidote to an unsuccessful reimagining of Götterdämmerung. It’s short, uncomplicated, tuneful and nobody dies. It’s a simple love story in which an Alsatian landowner, who is a confirmed bachelor, makes a bet with the local rabbi that he can’t find him a bride. Then he falls hopelessly in love with the daughter of his tenant and they all live happily ever after.
