Rare Rameau

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On February 2nd Voicebox: Opera in Concert will be performing Rameau’s rarely performed Hippolyte et Aricie at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.  The cast will be led by mezzo Alyson McHardy as Phèdre with tenor Colin Ainsworth as Hippolyte, soprano Meredith Hall as Aricie and veteran bass Alain Coulombe as Thesée.  Accompaniment will be by the Aradia Ensemble conducted by Kevin Mallon.  Tickets are available from www.stlc.com

It seems like some of the most interesting repertoire choices this year are being presented in concert rather than fully staged.  At least this one has more than piano accompaniment.

Kupfer/Barenboim Ring – 1. Das Rheingold

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The 1991 Bayreuth Ring cycle is one of those productions that has become a historical landmark, as much as Chereau and Boulez’ 1976 effort, or maybe even more so.  For many people it is the Ring.  So what is it like?  The staging is very bare and much reliance is placed on effects like lasers and smoke.  It also makes considerable acting and athletic demands on the singers.  It is, in many ways, a very modern production for 1991.

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Il Trittico

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Puccini’s Il Trittico is a collection of three one act operas designed to be performed on a single evening.  They rarely are.  Perhaps this is because performing all three makes for a rather long evening (and for a huge cast) or maybe it’s because two of the three aren’t all that great.  In any event, while most opera goers will likely have seen the comedy Gianni Schicchi, most will likely not have seen the two tragedies that precede it; Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica.  However, all three works were performed as a triple bill at the Royal Opera House in 2011.  The show was broadcast by the BBC and is available on Blu-ray and DVD.  All three pieces were directed by Richard Jones and Anthony Pappano conducted.

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Static Elektra

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For the performances of Elektra at the 2010 Baden-Baden festival the Powers that Be chose to revive Herbert Wernicke’s 1997 Munich production with Bettina Göschl directing.  The production concept seems to have been inspired by classical Greek drama.  Sets and costumes are very simple, even austere, and the singers often address the audience directly.  On stage this probably worked quite well as the overall effects are visually striking and the relative lack of interaction between the characters is perhaps appropriate for a work that is so much about alienation.

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A statistical round up of 2013

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jane_tixOperaramblings closed out 2013 with 70323 hits, up 47% from 2012.  Every month was busier than its equivalent in 2012 with a record high 7050 hits in October.  The busiest day was December 15th with 761 hits boosted by traffic related to Against the Grain’s Messiah.  I’ll be interested to see if this upward trend continues.  Personally, I think we are close to plateauing but at a level I would have regarded as completely unattainable when I started this little venture.

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Blogs I read

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I do read other people’s opera related blogs. Here are a few of the ones I read fairly regularly:

Mostly about the Toronto scene but worth reading anyway

Musical Toronto – Perhaps the most comprehensive blog covering the Toronto classical music scene.  John Terauds is a former music critic of the Toronto Star and it was, in large part, his removal from that role (and its elimination) that “inspired” me to write How to write an opera review for a Toronto newspaper.

Definitely the Opera – Lydia Perović’s blog is perhaps not updated as often as one might wish but what is there is always worth a read.  This is the only place I know when you can get just about every opera in town dissected through the lens of gender theory, with a distinct queer bias.  She’s not a bad novelist either.

barczablog – Leslie Barcza is a self described Pollyanna.  If it’s possible to find good in a performance he will.  This is not to say he’s not insightful.  He is, often brilliantly so.  It’s just that he prefers not to dwell on the negative.  I’ve learned a lot from him especially when I have found myself reviewing pieces I wouldn’t have chosen to buy tickets for.  It may not be my thing but that doesn’t make it bad or wrong.  More than a few professional critics could usefully take lessons from this blog.

Random friends in the blogosphere

The Earworm – A very personal, quirky blog written by a young American academic.  It contains good thoughtful reviews of performances, mainly at the Met, and detailed dissections of video recordings; mainly baroque and classical and often in several instalments.  Also dreams and stuff.

Regie or not Regie – Contains links, information and analysis of just about anything operatic being live streamed anywhere in the world.  Also lots of pointers to Youtube clips.  For giggles there are also compendia of “stupid reviewer comments” mostly from amazon.com.

Opera Obsession – Another opera blog from a young American academic currently in Germany.  It’s very erudite in a good way.  I wish I wrote as well as Lucy.

Intermezzo – One of the great news, rumour and gossip sites of the opera world and not nearly as unpleasant as the other one.  I don’t know how she does it.

Third Floor Republic – A Boston based opera, music and theatre blog.  Quite eclectic, always intelligent and has cats.

Likely Impossibilities – A good place to find long, thoughtful reviews of performances mainly at the Metropolitan Opera.

Land of Smiles

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Lehár’s Das Land des Lächelns must have seemed old fashioned even when it opened in 1929 in a Berlin that had already seen Wozzeck and Die Dreigroschenoper.  With its waltzes and gentle chinoiserie it looks back rather than forward musically and makes few demands on its listeners.  Similarly, the plot; a bittersweet romance between an Austrian aristocrat and a Chinese prince had nothing in it to disturb contemporaries though modern audiences might find the cultural appropriation a bit hard to take.  However, if Turandot doesn’t bother you this likely won’t either.

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Where’s the Champagne?

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It’s really hard to know where to start with Hans Neuenfels’ Die Fledermaus.  It’s a prodcuction that enraged the more conventional patrons when it opened at the Salzburg Festival in 2001.  It even provoked a “false pretences” lawsuit!  There is so much going on that it almost seems to call for a catalogue raisonnée of the various scenes though one fears that would actually be both tedious and unhelpful.  Let’s try instead to explore it thematically.  Neuenfels takes very considerable liberties with the libretto.  A lot of dialogue is cut, a lot is added and numerous non-canonical characters are inserted.  That’s just a start.

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David Alden’s Poppea

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I’m never quite sure what to expect from David Alden.  Some things are predictable; striking images, bold colours and a degree of vulgarity, but beyond that it’s hard to be sure.  Sometimes he seems to be trying to be deep (his Lucia for example), sometimes more kitschy (Rinaldo) and there’s always a slight undercurrent of him thumbing his nose at the audience.  His production of L’incoronazione di Poppea at Barcelona’s Liceu is a curious combination of all these things and I think it works pretty well.

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