Der Rosenkavalier

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Back in 1961 Paul Czinner decided to experiment with filming a live opera performance. He chose the 1961 Salzburg Festival production of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. I guess it got a theatrical release in the day then more or less disappeared, popping up up from time to time in a rather poor quality ‘Pan and Scan’ VHS version. Now it’s been digitally restored from a 35mm print and released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Kultur. It’s spectacular. It looks like early 1960s 35mm colour and it sounds like early 1960s analogue stereo. Very impressive. Like watching Il Gattopardo while listening to a recording by John Culshaw or Walter Legge.

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Lunchtime recital at the Four Seasons Centre

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I went to a free recital at the Four Seasons Centre earlier today. The Studio Ensemble cast(*) for the new Magic Flute were performing excerpts. It was really very good. I’ve seen some of the singers before and it pretty much confirmed what I thought the first time. I really think we will see a lot of Wallis Giunta, Ileana Montalbetti and Ambur Braid in the next few years. Adrian Kramer and Christopher Enns look to have bright futures too. The rest of the cast were solid enough they just didn’t grab me quite the same way.

* The Ensemble Studio is Canadian Opera’s training program for young professional singers. Once a year they get to put on a fully staged performance of one of the COC season productions. They are doing Magic Flute at the FSC on February 17th. Tickets are $55 and $22 (ring 5 only). If anyone is planning to buy tickets for the regular performances I’ve got a 15% off discount code you can use.

Yet another Carmen

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This time it’s the 2002 Glyndebourne production directed by David McVicar. Anne Sofie von Otter sings the title role with Marcus Haddock as Don José. The production is quite restrained by McVicar standards of this period, perhaps an indication of the tamer Met productions to come, though the final scene is gruesome enough and Carmen and Don José make out more enthusiastically than in some other productions. It’s in appropriate period costumes and is pretty enough to look at without being ‘different’ in any significant way.

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La Fanciulla del West

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Fanciulla is Puccini’s American opera. It’s set during the California gold rush and it was the first opera ever to premiere in New York, one hundred years and a couple of days ago. The soprano role, Minnie, is notoriously difficult to sing and so it isn’t produced all that often.

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Archive

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If you have tracked back this far you have gone as far back as I intend to go in back dating this blog. All the non-ephemeral posts for 2011 have been transferred from my Livejournal. Feel free to explore that for cats, rugby and life in general. You can also get the complete opera related posts which will net you reviews prior to 2011 as well as a fair amount of opera related ephemera.