A meticulous musical makeover in Riga

By Jonathan Sutherland, 11 July 2017

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“Elīna Šimkus sang a musically mellifluous and dramatically convincing Carthaginian queen”

Reviewed at St Peter’s Church, Riga on 7 July 2017

Purcell, Dido and Aeneas

Coin du Roi

Christian Frattima, Conductor

Marco Bellussi, Director

Elīna Šimkus, Dido

Giulio Alvise Caselli, Aeneas

Anna Chierichetti, Belinda

Milena Storti, Sorceress

Riccardo Botta, Sailor

Orchestra Coin du Roi

Coin du Roi’s Serse in Milan's Teatro Litta

Courtney Smith, 29th May

"Grab ’em by the throat and never let ’em go!" goes the famous quote by legendary Hollywood director Billy Wilder – Sunset Boulevard, Some like it Hot, and Double Indemnity among his masterpieces – who regularly dispensed stellar advice to aspiring, young writers. Unlike good screenwriting, opera’s blood and thunder decree doesn’t need much coaching to bare its jugular.

***11

10 Days in a Madhouse receives Canadian premiere

John Gilks, 16th June

10 Days in a Madhouse is a musically and dramatically excellent but disturbing insight into conditions in a women’s asylum brought to life in Toronto by an excellent production.

****1

Galați Cenerentola lights up the Bucharest stage

Peter Quantrill, 15th June

First class young voices and bewitchingly stylised designs shine through the murk at the Bucharest Opera Festival.

****1

L’Orfeo, the world’s first great opera, premieres at Glyndebourne

Roy Westbrook, 14th June

One element of the Orpheus myth is about creativity, so at Glyndebourne, William Kentridge sets Monteverdi’s opera in an artist's studio,

****1

Darkness without passion: Damiano Michieletto’s Carmen at La Scala

Laura Servidei, 12th June

Despite Michieletto's visual gloom, the evening is redeemed by Myung-whun Chung’s masterful conducting and a cast that brings conviction to a production that rarely trusts the opera’s own dramatic power.

**111

Aldeburgh Festival dives in at the deep end with Pelléas et Mélisande

Eleanor Knight, 12th June

Rory Kinnear directs a minimally semi-staged performance of Debussy's problematic opera at Snape Maltings, but Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish SO provide the detail.

****1

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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.

Dido and Aeneas enjoys a meticulous musical makeover from Christian Frattima in Riga