Vocal splendour in Le Coq d’Or

By Mark Pullinger, 09 July 2014

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“Clarinets coiled themselves around the chromatic arabesques...”

Reviewed at The London Coliseum, London on 8 July 2014

Rimsky-Korsakov, Le Coq d'or (The Golden Cockerel)

Saisons Russes du XXI Siècle

Alevtina Ioffe, Conductor

Andris Liepa, Director

Natalia Goncharova, Set Designer

Petr Melentiev, Astrologer

Alexander Tsilinko, Tsar Dodon

Sergey Petrishchev, Prince Guidon

Denis Boldov, Prince Afron

Natalia Eliseeva, Amelfa

Nikolai Petrenko, General Polkan

Zarina Samadova, Golden Cockerel

Olesya Titenko, Queen of Shemakha

Moscow State Music Theatre Orchestra

Diaghilev's opera-ballet Le Coq d'Or returns to life

Margaret Willis, 8th July

It was like going on the journey from Kansas to the Land of Oz. After dank, dark drizzle on the streets outside, the scene inside the London Coliseum suddenly transformed into dazzling and vivid colour for this famous fairy-tale by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

***11

Diaghilev's opera-ballet Le Coq d'Or returns to life

Margaret Willis, 8th July

***11

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

Diamonds and steel: Anna Pirozzi rules in La Scala’s Turandot revival

Laura Servidei, 12th April

Visually enchanting and meticulously staged, this centenary revival confirms Livermore's production as a modern classic.

****1

Art imitates art in ETO’s bracing new Pagliacci

Dominic Lowe, 10th April

Divorced from Cavalleria rusticana, English Touring Opera’s contemporary take on Leoncavallo’s masterpiece ticks all the boxes.

****1

Regents Opera’s Salome lands a knockout punch at York Hall

Mark Pullinger, 10th April

Mark Ravenhill directs a brutal, bloody Salome for Regents Opera at the spiritual home of British boxing, York Hall.

****1

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.

Kaleidoscopic colour and vocal splendour: Diaghilev’s Le Coq d’Or