Director Davide Livermore updates the plot to the period of the Russian Revolution, October 1917, a far echo of that turning point in 1403 when the Ottoman sultan Bajazet was defeated by the Tartar Timburlaine.
Staggering performances from Esa-Pekka Salonen and Philharmonia in John Adams’s sonic journey, Naïve and Sentimental Music, and Marianne Crebassa exquisite in Ravel’s Shéhérazade.
With barely time for coffee and baklava after the Orchestre Pasdeloup's Arabian matinee, I stepped boldly back into the harem for a rendezvous with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse.
Nothing is better than when Berlioz ramps up the decibels. With a huge orchestra and choir and a deluxe starry cast assembled in Strasbourg, this was a special performance.
At La Scala, Milan a disappointing tribute to Giorgio Strehler's historic staging of The Marriage of Figaro by young English director Frederic Wake-Walker.
The singing is the main attraction in Dutch National Opera’s Le nozze di Figaro, but this new production is also entertaining and looks good enough to eat.
If the production is full of pleasures, they do not immediately or obviously connect to a sense of some larger plan, which might have been helped along with a more dynamic set.
Gounod's Faust returns after 45 years to the National Dutch Opera, and this new production directed by Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus, lead by a fine cast and conducted by Marc Minkowski is nothing short of spectacular.
À l'Opéra Garnier, le conte de Rossini est assombri par la mise en scène de Guillaume Gallienne. On se rattrape avec la production dans laquelle se distingue Marianne Crebassa, éblouissante dans le rôle-titre.
Lange hat man Mozart in Salzburg nicht mehr so mitreißend erlebt. Mit dem neuen Titus gelingt Neo-Intendant Markus Hinterhäuser ein Coup, der erhoffen lässt, dass sich Salzburg einer neuen goldenen Ära entgegenbewegt.
Qu'on le veuille ou non, jouer le requiem de Mozart est devenu un acte politique. Instruments anciens ou instruments modernes ? Faut-il opter pour Süssmayr – un choix manifestement sûr – ou tenter, au risque de se faire huer des extrémistes, Robbins Landon, voire la version de Rio ? La réponse de Bertrand de Billy dans cet article.
