Staging Messiah

It’s a rare and valuable experience when a performance makes one reconsider a perhaps overly familiar work.  That’s the effect that Claus Guth’s 2009 staging of Handel’s Messiah had on me.  I don’t think that there is any piece I’m more familiar with than Messiah.  I feel like I’ve known it all my life.  I’ve sung it.  I own a vocal score (rare indeed for me!).  I couldn’t begin to count how many times I’ve heard it.  And yet here it came up entirely fresh and had me thinking about it in completely new ways.

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Turandot in the Forbidden City

Being an opera lover would probably be easier if I liked Puccini more, given how much air, DVD and stage time his works get, but I really struggle with him.  I think it’s that concepts like “subtlety”, “elegance”, “verisimilitude” and “cultural sensitivity” completely passed him by.  In an Italian setting his bombast and melodrama are somewhat made up for by the catchy tunes but move him to China or Japan or the United States and my ability to override my reality chip fails me.  Which is a long winded way of saying Turandot is not my favourite opera.

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