A fine cast led by Maija Kovalevska conveys the timeless beauty and emotion of Puccini’s Parisian melodrama, but the 1930s Berlin setting remains an imperfectly realised transformation.
The ever-popular La bohème returns in Gale Edwards' adaptation which features a change to the final months of the 1930s Weimar Republic as featured in the musical Cabaret.
David McVicar's Don Giovanni for Opera Australia takes its cue from the brutally grim opening of the opera, yet remains true to Mozart’s own description of a “jocular” work (dramma giocoso).
I left the Sydney Opera House last night feeling vaguely dissatisfied, and yet a bit puzzled at my dissatisfaction. La Traviata is chock-full of Verdi’s most glorious music, and well though I know the score, I wasn’t feeling in the least jaded to begin with.
In an opera of such popularity as Carmen by Georges Bizet, it wouldn’t be easy to please an audience likely to be inured to a variety of performances of arias such as Habanera and The Toreador’s Song. Yet Opera Australia made a thoughtfully constructed and well vindicated attempt.
