Tag Archives: prokofiev

Frustrating Gambler in Salzburg

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I don’t think I’ve been as frustrated by a video recording of an opera since I watched the 2007 recording of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland.  This time the culprit is a recording of the 2024 production of Prokofiev’s The Gambler at the Salzburg Festival.  It’s a Peter Sellars production set in the Felsenreitschule and it’s fascinating on many levels.  The problem is that, as is wont, Sellars directs the video too and he seems to think people watch opera videos on their phones.  There’s been a welcome trend since the advent of HD cameras to, generally, show as much of the stage action as possible and ration extreme close ups.  Sellars takes the opposite approach and it drives me nuts.  Not only do I feel that I’m missing a lot; especially in the cavernous Felsenreitschule, but I just don’t need to know how fast Asmik Gregorian is moving her tongue when she’s going for fast vibrato.

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Jurowski and Tcherniakov do War and Peace

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How does one do (if one does at all) a propagandistic Russian opera in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.  Dmitri Tcherniakov and Vladimir Jurowski’s approach to Prokofiev’s War and Peace, filmed at Bayerische Staatsoper, is radical, complex and controversial.  See my full (and ridiculously long) review at La Scena Musicale.

Chicago Symphony

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As part of music director Riccardo Muti’s final tour with the orchestra, the Chicago Symphony is coming to Toronto in February for the first time since 1914.  It’s at Koerner too, so it’s a chance to see one of the world’s great orchestras in a really good acoustic.  The dates are February 1st and 2nd 2023 and the programmes are:

  • February 1st:  Beethoven Symphony No. 7 and Prokofiev Symphony No. 5
  • February 2nd: Beethoven Coriolan Overture and Symphony No. 8, Liadov The Enhanted Lake and Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition.

CSOmuti

Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg Photography

A new beginning?

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Last night the Music Director designate of the TSO, Gustavo Gimeno, conducted a concert of 20th century classics.  It was the first chance to see him with the orchestra since his appointment.  First up was the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor.  It’s a curious work with relatively little dialogue between soloist and orchestra.  Rather there’s a very Sibelian orchestral piece kind of sandwiched with a highly virtuosic violin part but it works in an odd sort of way.  It was also very well played with all the necessary virtuosity from soloist Jonathan Crow and an orchestral sound which while often dark and brooding was also quite transparent.

TSO June 28 Photo Credit Jag Gundu

Photo: Jag Gundu

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War in opera

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As November 11th comes around for the 94th time since the guns were, very temporarily, silenced I thought it might be interesting to look at how war has been seen by librettists and composers over the years. Very early on we get a very gritty take on the subject in Monteverdi’s extremely compact Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda but not so long after the path for the next three centuries is set with Purcell’s broadly comic King Arthur.  As far as I can see from Purcell to 1945, with very minor exceptions, the message is largely “war is fun”.  War is an excuse for a big parade (Aida; unless Tim Albery is directing!), an excuse for a drinking song (Faust), just plain comedic (La Fille du Regiment), a plot device (Cosí fan tutte) or a background event (Tosca, various versions of the Armida story).  The only opera, pre 1945, that I can think of that deals with the horror of war is Les Troyens, and that of course takes place in a distant, mythical, past.

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Tcherniakov’s Gambler

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So I finally found a way of getting the Kultur release of the 2008 Staatsoper unter den Linden production of Prokofiev’s The Gambler to work, with subtitles and all, though I had to go to my back up DVD player.  As you will read below this is a very interesting and worthwhile DVD but whatever you do, don’t buy the Kultur release which is technically wonky and features sub-standard Dolby 2.0 sound.  For heaven’s sake who is doing Dolby 2.0 on an opera DVD in 2008!  The same recording is available on regionless DVD and Blu-ray from C-Major and in that release it features PCM 5.1 and LPCM stereo choices.  There may even be some useful documentation which, as ever with Kultur, is minimal.  There are also more subtitle choices on the C-Major version.

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