The Vienna State Opera’s revival if their 2014 production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen with conductor Tomáš Netopil vividly realises the glowing colours of the composer's great affirmation of the eternal vigour of nature.
Led by phenomenal performances by tenor Javier Camarena and his superb colleagues, Met's Don Pasquale was a joyous occasion to celebrate Donizetti's late Opera Buffa.
Otto Schenk's Vienna production of Der Rosenkavalier has been mounted 366 times since its 1968 inauguration and there is definitely no demand for a new one.
The Met brought back its traditional staging of Tannhäuser with remarkable performances by the Orchestra, Chorus and soloists, with two outstanding male singers.
James Levine led a solid and at times excellent performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Otto Schenk's traditional production that somehow lacked sparkle and excitement.
This L’elisir d’amore at the Vienna Staatsoper, with Lawrence Brownlee and Mario Cassi, saw a successful two-performance test-run before its return in March, again under the baton of Guillermo García Calvo.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin kept the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra sounding especially lively and cohesive in this revival of Otto Schenk's enchanting production of Rusalka, starring Renée Fleming as the water nymph and Piotr Beczala as her lover.
Love and death are the two basic ingredients of the standard opera plot, and the more tragedy involved from the first to the last, the more likely it is to spur composers to set it to magnificent music. Andrea Chénier is a textbook example of this although it is not anywhere near as popular as La traviata, Carmen or La bohème, and explicably so.
Dass alte Produktionen nicht unbedingt verstaubt und langweilig sein müssen, zeigt die Bayerische Staatsoper mit einer denkwürdigen Rosenkavalier-Vorstellung.
Glücklich, wer ein Taschentuch zur Hand hatte - die historische Produktion von La bohème an der Bayerischen Staatsoper ist auch nach fast 50 Jahren noch so ergreifend wie eh und je.
