Interviewed at the time of this production's first outing, McVicar declared that “Entertainment is not a dirty word”. His Giulio Cesare remains a hugely entertaining opera production.
If you had received an invitation to a masked ball at which there turned out to be no masks and no dancing, it's understandable you'd feel disappointed.
With Andris Nelsons' withdrawal from Bayreuth last year, the BSO’s summer home, Tanglewood, became the venue for his Wagner with a concert performance of Das Rheingold
Christopher Alden's account of Handel's love pentangle is long on Man Ray imagery and modern language wordplay, but never hits the vocal highs and eventually palls.
Two parts of Puccini's triptych are directed by Michael Barker-Craven - Il tabarro and Suor Angelica - in brilliantly successful productions at Leeds Grand Theatre.
Symphonie Altlantique, a period orchestra composed of young professional musicians based in The Hague, gave a very engaging performance of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
The view of Jesus as the archetypal left wing radical, champion of the poor and dispossessed and scourge of the wealthy forms the foundation of John Adams and Peter Sellars’ oratorio The Gospel According To The Other Mary. A strong score and outstanding conductor and singers make for an impressive première.
Of the “ABCs” of opera (Aida, Bohème, and Carmen), Bizet’s masterpiece is the one that has made the transition to pop culture ubiquity. Surely even the most oblivious of listeners are able to whistle along to the “Habanera” and “Toreador Song”. Furthermore, the melodramatic story of exoticism, lust and rejection is one of the most popular of operatic tales.
Of the various themes that make up Britten’s Gloriana, written to celebrate the coronation in 1953 and being given a rare outing at Covent Garden to mark the work’s 60th anniversary and Britten’s 100th, the most effective by far is a sort of operatic expansion of Shakespeare’s line “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”.
David McVicar’s Giulio Cesare is still riotous at the Met, the production having transferred from Glyndebourne. This is a delicious, smart production, then, with interest for the brain, ears, and eyes alike.
Handel’s Radamisto has an improbable plot (although average by Baroque opera standards) which can make it difficult to stage. The most recent staging in London was the ENO production in 2010, which had a largely abstract setting.
When the Theater an der Wien’s in-house magazine featured an article about costumes created by none other than Christian Lacroix for this new production of Radamisto, I was intrigued by the pictures, but also a bit nonplussed by the idea that his gowns had been hand-painted in order to illustrate the different levels of Radamisto’s nightmare.
The full name of Handel's opera is Giulio Cesare in Egitto: it depicts a historically loose version of Caesar's sojourn in Alexandria, during which Pompey is murdered, Ptolemy is killed in battle and Cleopatra is installed as Queen.
On Saturday night, Antonio Pappano and his Roman orchestra and chorus, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, brought us the first opera of the 2011 Proms- Gioachino Rossini's William Tell.
