McBurney's brilliant stagecraft brings child-like wonderment to the most hardened adults; his interpretation and Raphaël Pichon's conducting exude Mozartian rightness.
Juanjo Mena and the Oslo Philharmonic presented a programme of Haydn, Mozart and Brahms, drawing historical parallels, but most importantly showcasing some very fine playing.
Die Zauberflöte may well tell us something about the Human Condition, but its staging in Zurich serves more to distract from the music and the messages than it does to support them.
Belgian conductor and baroque specialist René Jacobs demonstrates his iconoclastic approach to Mozart with an excitingly theatrical Abduction from the Seraglio at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
It often takes time to adjust to Nikolaus Harnoncourt's tempi, but this concert performance of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro enabled the audience to discover new colours in a well known score.
Calixto Bieito's The Tales of Hoffmann at the Norwegian National Opera contains some very effective and at times striking moments, but the production turned out something of a disappointment overall.
The Orchestre de Paris’ 2013/14 season opened with a cymbal crash. Orages (meaning “thunderstorms” in French) was commissioned by the Orchestre de Paris to the Lebanese composer Bechara El-Khoury. In this musical storm, sounds hurt each other, as if superimposed.
In times where musical luxury is sometimes associated with having a pop star perform a short “Happy Birthday” and a handful of songs in a private performance – and for a usually undisclosed (and indecent) fee, having a whole piece of music composed for an occasion, or organising a private performance by a famous orchestra, is almost unimaginable.
The 2012 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence began its four-week feast of opera and music with Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro—and could there be better a way? Nothing can beat the sublime company of Mozart, Da Ponte and Beaumarchais on a summer evening in the open-air Théâtre de l'Archevêché.
Director William Friedkin doesn’t put a dramaturgical foot wrong in his Theater an der Wien production of The Tales of Hoffmann and yet doesn’t challenge, or even engage with, any of the opera’s Romantic positions.
The last production I saw of L’Orfeo explored the idea of music as a manipulative force, suggesting disturbing consequences to the docility it can engender. Director Claus Guth is less concerned with Orfeo the musician, and makes minimal acknowledgement of the work’s pastoral and mythic elements.
On ne pourra pas dire que l’équipe des metteurs en scène/chorégraphes Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui et Damien Jalet, associée à Marina Abramovic qui signait et le décor et le concept, aient fait dans le conventionnel, offrant une approche à la fois futuriste et rétro de Pelléas et Mélisande.
