Hamburg Bohème a feast for voyeurs

By Jonathan Sutherland, 21 December 2017

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Reviewed at Hamburgische Staatsoper: Main Hall, Hamburg on 19 December 2017

Puccini, La bohème

Staatsoper Hamburg

Stefano Ranzani, Conductor

Guy Joosten, Director

Johannes Leiacker, Set Designer

Jorge Jara, Costume Designer

Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Rodolfo

Iulia Maria Dan, Mimì

Kartal Karagedik, Marcello

Katerina Tretyakova, Musetta

Zak Kariithi, Schaunard

Alexander Roslavets, Colline

Reinhard Dorn, Benoît

Shin Yeo, Alcindoro

Sascha Kramer, Parpignol

Davy Cunningham, Lighting Designer

Hamburger Alsterspatzen

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper

Christian Günther, Choirmaster / chorus director

Frauenliebe und -sterben: Kratzer’s triple bill at Staatsoper Hamburg

Mengguang Huang, 15th April

Director Tobias Kratzer engineers a haunting pasticcio of Schumann, Bartók and Zemlinsky, tracing the domestic sphere’s shift from romantic surrender to the blood-soaked secrets of a century-spanning house.

****1

Vampires, Disney and Donald Trump: Monster’s Paradise in Hamburg

Kevin W Ng, 1st February

Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek take on Donald Trump in their latest operatic collaboration.

****1

Unsuk Chin's opera Die dunkle Seite des Mondes premieres in Hamburg

Mengguang Huang, 31st May

At Staatsoper Hamburg, Unsuk Chin’s new opera The Dark Side of the Moon immerses audiences in an hypnotic, introspective journey, where dreams, science and psyche collide in a rigorously crafted, thought-provoking spectacle.

****1

Franciscan virtues for a modern age: a multimedia Messiaen remix

Peter Quantrill, 2nd June

No half measures in a triple-decker Hamburg staging of Saint François d'Assise at the Elbphilharmonie.

***11

Staatsoper Hamburg's new Boris Godunov traverses Russian history

Alexander Hall, 16th September

Opening the new opera season, Kent Nagano powerfully directs Mussorgsky's great psychodrama about a famous tsar, marred only by Frank Castorf's visually confusing and symbolically overweighted production.

****1

Beauty and the beast: Sciarrino's Venere e Adone premieres in Hamburg

Alexander Hall, 28th May

What does opera in the 21st century look and sound like? Streets removed from anything Mozart, Verdi or Wagner would have recognised. But Salvatore Sciarrino is his own man.

***11

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Jonathan Sutherland

Jonathan Sutherland is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Hochschule Mozarteum in Salzburg. He is also an internationally renowned concert pianist specializing in the music of the 1930s. Jonathan’s first operatic experience was hearing Maria Callas sing Tosca in Covent Garden and he has since heard performances in all continents of the world including over 60 different productions at the Wiener Staatsoper. He has written for The Australian, Opera Today and The Opera Critic as well as Bachtrack. Jonathan speaks English, French, German and Italian fluently and is based in the south of France near Nice.

Guy Joosten’s La bohème a feast for voyeurs in Hamburg