The battle of the choirs is a thrilling moment in just about any performance of Dutchman, but produces shock and awe in the live acoustics of Budapest's Bartok Bela Concert Hall.
Deutsche Oper Berlin performed an intensely focussed opera on the birth and death of one man based on Jon Fosse's novel – a memorable and moving contemplation on life.
A threadbare staging from Graham Vick allows Haas’ innovative score to shine. Drama is modest, but complements sophisticated music to project an impressively unified vision.
This was a concert made in heaven. To hear Per Nørgård's Iris, one of a triptych of symphonic poems composed in the late 1960s, eerie and mysterious, and underlain by the influences of Sibelius and Nørgård's teacher and fellow-symphonist, Vagn Holmboe, would make a rich and rewarding enough occasion in itself.
Cardillac has a spooky, sinister fascination that both intrigues and horrifies and which is quite successfully expressed in this striking production by Sven-Eric Bechtolf.
Schubert's unfinished oratorio Lazarus joined with other interesting works by both Schubert and Charles Ives in a staged performance at the Theater an der Wien, directed by Claus Guth. Strongly cast, the musical juxtaposition works better than the oratorio itself, and the rather cold dramaturgy.
My mother always told me not to sit too close in the theatre, and after seeing this revival of Martin Kusej’s modern realization of Stravinksy’s The Rake’s Progress at the Theater an der Wien, I think I know what she was talking about.Act I begins innocuously enough in a sparse apartment, unfurnished apart from a mattress and a television.
Claude Debussy’s only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, calls for a spring in a forest, scenes in a palace, a well in a park and a scene in the palace vaults. Ever since its premiere in 1902, it has been a difficult work to stage, and indeed to appreciate. Its complex symbolism, impressionistic music and lack of any memorable melodies were not a good recipe for a runaway hit.
