The singing is the main attraction in Dutch National Opera’s Le nozze di Figaro, but this new production is also entertaining and looks good enough to eat.
Louis Andriessen’s new opera is a masterly expedition into the grand and grotesque mind of Athanasius Kircher, polymath and fantastist, but it is hampered by a clumsy libretto.
A mesmerising Wozzeck, thanks to the trampled dignity of Florian Boesch’s antihero, Asmik Grigorian’s gloriously sung Marie, and a thrillingly savage Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.
The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra was in glittering form, while strong singing and acting enhanced each other in the evocative woodland of Claus Guth’s Don Giovanni.
Suave baritone Stéphane Degout was mood – and word – perfect in the brooding melancholy of Debussy. In perfect collusion with pianist Alain Planès, he was even better in droll fables by Poulenc and Ravel.
Bach’s Magnificat featured superlative solos from both singers and musicians, but the RCO and Iván Fischer reached a higher plane in a beautifully crafted and optimistic Brahms’ First Symphony.
In a reconstruction of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production for the world première of Reimann’s soul-pummelling Lear, the staging stands the test of time, but the cast and orchestra leave the biggest impression.
The Netherlands Radio Choir is marking its 70th anniversary with a series of jubilee concerts, including Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, conducted with control and compassionby Edo de Waart.
Richard Jones creates forceful theatre by staging Ariodante as a tale of shaming and abuse. Andrea Marcon conducts an accomplished cast and the first-class Concerto Köln.
Undeservedly, Lieder recitals have a rarefied, old-lace aura that can scare off potential fans. Far from being remote and understated, their intimate nature closely connects singers with their audiences.
Accompanied by an ebulliant Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, a fine Danish cast popped open the comedic bubbly at a concert performance of Nielsen’s Maskarade at the Concertgebouw.
Soprano Lisa Larsson and pianist Roland Pöntinen dispelled the midwinter gloom with a heavy dose of Scandinavian Romanticism and the Dutch première of Rolf Martinsson's Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson.
To celebrate its 50th birthday Dutch National Opera put on a festive tribute to the people that have made it the innovative and much-admired house it is today.
In Rotterdam, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a gracefully contoured Beethoven Sixth Symphony and, together with fabulous vocal and instrumental soloists, reaches core-deep into Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.
