Tag Archives: westbroek

Creepy Wozzeck

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Alban Berg’s Wozzeck seems to attract just about every possible treatment from directors other than a straightforwardly literal one.  Krzysof Warlikowski’s approach, seen at Dutch National Opera in 2017, is to go back to the original story on which the Büchner play, in its turn the source for the opera, is based.  Wrapped around that are several interesting ideas which I can’t fully unpack but which make for a rather creepy but compelling production.  Alas, the disk package has nothing to say about the production so, interpretively, one is on one’s own.

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Nobody vomits on Dolly Parton’s shoes

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I’ve tried several times in the past to watch the DVD recording of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole and never made it past the second scene, which is revolting and, I still think, rather patronising.  This time though I made it all the way through and I think, taken as a whole, this is a pretty impressive piece with a clever libretto and some real musical depth.  It’s also, in the true and technical sense, a tragedy, and a very operatic one at that.

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Patchy Andrea Chénier

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What’s become of David McVicar?  His 2015 production of Giodarno’s Andrea Chénier for the Royal Opera House seems typical of his recent work.  It looks expensive.  It features a starry cast.  He flirts with dramatic risk but in the last analysis it comes off as a bit tame and even sloppy.  Basically when the principals are at the centre of the drama it’s compelling stuff but when they are not it’s not and there are curious inconsistencies.

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Cav and Pag

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Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci are not only a commonly coupled pair of operas but pretty much define the genre we call verismo.  It’s a curious genre in a lot of ways.  Musically it defines a style, brought to its highest state by Puccini, that is a sort of Fukuyama-esque “end of opera” after which everything is, for a section of the opera audience, modern, inaccessible and frightening.  It’s also dramatically an attempt to get away from stories from myth and history and root the drama in “stories of everyday folk”.  Which is fine, I suppose, if one believes the only things “everyday folk” care about are female constancy and the more pagan end of Catholicism for these stories tend to be a touch unsubtle; “she done him wrong so he killed her” (and her dog and he probably crashed her truck too).  It’s actually quite ironic that Puccini, held up as the arch exponent of verismo, rarely actually goes down this path.  Il Tabarro perhaps, maybe Suor Angelica, at a stretch Tosca but in large part his material is drawn from the usual well of opera plots.  So Cav and Pag is interesting as almost pure verismo.

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ROH cinema screenings return to Bloor Hotdocs

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15830210743_c7a53486abRoyal Opera House cinema screenings are back at the Bloor Cinema and it seems that the full season will be available.  ENO are you watching or is your sense of Ontario gepography akin to your business acumen?

First up, tomorrow, at noon they’re screening Giordano’s Andrea Chenier directed by David McVicar with Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek.

March 22nd sees Tim Albery’s production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer with Adrienne Pieczonka and Bryn Terfel.  Ms. Pieczonka will be on hand to introduce the piece.

On June 28th we get a new John Fulljames production of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with Anne Sofie von Otter.

July 26th sees John Copley’s venerable production of Puccini’s La Bohème.  This production is almost as old as I am.  Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja play Mimi and Rodolfo.

Finally, on August 30th  we can see a new production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell directed by Damiano Michieletto with Antonio Pappano conducting. The cast includes Gerry Finley and Malin Bystrom.

Seamen from a distant Eastern shore

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Berlioz’ Les Troyens is one of those pieces that really deserves the descriptor “sprawling epic” and, if anyone can make an epic sprawl it’s David McVicar.  This production, recorded at the Royal Opera House in 2012, is typical of McVicar’s more recent work.  It’s visually rather splendid and the action is well orchestrated but it’s short on ideas and long on McVicar visual cliches; acrobats, gore and urchins (but mercifully no animals).  I don’t want to be too hard on McVicar.  This piece is based on the sort of “Ancient History” one used to learn at prep school (British usage) and McVicar pretty much runs with that making no attempt to find deeper meaning, despite superficially translating at least the first two acts to the time of first performance; the era of European colonialism.

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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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Full of sound and Furies

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When I first encountered Richard Strauss’ Elektra as a teenager I found the music almost unbearably harsh.  The more I listen to it the more erroneous that judgement seems.  It has its “tough” moments to be sure.  How could an opera about Elektra not?  But it is also full of lush romanticism and there are some really quite lovely passages.  In the 2010 Salzburg Festival recording Daniele Gatti explores both sides of the music in a rather thrilling reading of the score aided and abetted by the Wiener Philharmoniker and a pretty much ideal cast.

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Orgasm and murder

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Martin Kušej’s 2006 production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District for De Nederlandse Opera is occasionally puzzling but mostly brilliant.  The performance, with a strong cast centering on Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Katerina, inspired conducting from Mariss Jansons and consistent excellence from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the pit and the Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera on stage is unbeatable.  Combine that with decent video direction and superb audio-visual quality and the Opus Arte Blu-ray package becomes very attractive indeed.

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Die Walküre

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Once in a while an opera performance really blows you away and it becomes quite hard to write about, especially when the work is as long and dense as Die Walküre because even with a great performance one is in overload by the end. Yesterday’s broadcast from the Met was one of those experiences. Here’s what I think I saw!

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