As the year of Wagner’s bicentennial approaches its end, De Nederlandse Opera concludes its latest revival of Pierre Audi’s Ring cycle with his 1998 production of Götterdämmerung.
It has been five years since mezzo Joyce DiDonato last sang in Amsterdam. In those five years, she won an Emmy Award, headed the cast of countless productions at the Met and Covent Garden, and has been recognized as one of the greatest opera singers of our time by the press and aficionados alike.
In a city where period-instrument concerts are legion, performances by William Christie and his excellent ensemble Les Arts Florissants remain very special events, if only because their original programming brings a breath of fresh air in a country where, still too often, baroque music isn’t taken very seriously if it isn’t Bach.
After Cavalli’s Ercole Amante in 2009 and Handel’s Deidamia in 2011, De Nederlandse Opera is continuing its exploration of obscure Baroque operas with Gluck’s Armide, until 27 October.I always wondered why Armide was Gluck’s own favourite work.
We celebrate this year the bicentennials of two of the most influential composers of the 19th century. Yet celebrations in Amsterdam have been rather one-sided so far.
