For many, summer is the time to escape the hustle and bustle of city life and head off into the countryside, or take a holiday abroad. And how better to spend your time than a trip to the opera while you’re there? As part of Festivals Month, here is our guide to what to see, whether at one of the many English country house offerings or a major festival.
Serious Wagnerians make the pilgrimage to Bayreuth at the height of each summer for the prestigious festival in the opera house the composer had built specifically to stage his music dramas. Each season features one new production of a work from the major canon; in 2019 it is the turn of Tannhäuser. Tobias Kratzer, whose new staging of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg for Deutsche Oper has just received great critical acclaim, directs a production conducted by Mariinsky maestro, Valery Gergiev. Critics will be most interested in the performance of Lise Davidsen, singing at Bayreuth for the first time. She has just made her role debut as Elisabeth in Zurich and sings it again in Munich before heading for the famous “Green Hill".
Once again, there is no Bayreuth Ring cycle this season – a new production is eagerly anticipated in 2020 – but those anxious for their fix of Wagner’s saga of gods, dwarfs and giants, head to Budapest. The annual Wagner Days festival takes place in the acoustically superb Béla Bartók Concert Hall (known as Müpa) and features a “concert production” of the cycle, this year featuring new direction and video footage. The cast is rather wonderful and includes Johan Reuter, Stuart Skelton, Catherine Foster and Stefan Vinke, all conducted by the inimitable Ádám Fischer.
Salzburg is one of the most glamorous summer festivals on the operatic calendar. The festival stages seven operas this summer as well as three concert performances. Having raised a few hackles with their production of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in 2017, the controversial duo of Peter Sellars and Teodor Currentzis turn their attentions to Idomeneo. Sellars can infuriate, although find him inspired. And don’t expect maverick conductor Currentzis to play it by the score… in Clemenza, he cut most of the recitatives and inserted music from the Mass in C minor. Expecting the unexpected may be the best approach.
Cherubini’s Médée is directed by Simon Stone, who has some high profile new productions in Paris and Munich next season. In Salzburg, he has star soprano Sonya Yoncheva as the vengeful Medea singing opposite Pavel Černoch’s Jason. Damiano Michieletto’s staging of Alcina premieres at Cecilia Bartoli’s Whitsun Festival, but returns to the Haus für Mozart in August, while Barrie Kosky’s take on Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld should be riotous (in the French composer’s bicentenary year). And after its stunning debut in 2018, there’s another chance to catch Romeo Castellucci’s astonishing production of Salome, again featuring Asmik Grigorian.
Tosca may seem a run-of-the-mill opera for a festival like Aix-en-Provence to offer, but don’t expect a standard staging from Christophe Honoré. His Così fan tutte, which relocated the action to Mussolini-occupied Eritrea in the late 1930s, shocked audiences and critics in 2016. The cast list for his Tosca offers a clue: Catherine Malfitano – a famous Tosca herself – plays “the prima donna” who invites singers to perform a gala in her honour, which awakens events in her past...
For the starriest names, Munich is the best destination. Each of the season’s new productions get another outing – often with the original cast – while house favourites Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann, Sonya Yoncheva and Pavol Breslik are never far away.