Wheel of Fortune: Preziosilla spins Pountney's Force of Destiny

By Mark Pullinger, 02 February 2018

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“a series of unwieldy tableaux, but Pountney makes something coherent from it”

Reviewed at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff on 2 February 2018

Verdi, La forza del destino

Welsh National Opera

Carlo Rizzi, Conductor

Sir David Pountney, Director

Raimund Bauer, Set Designer

Marie-Jeanne Lecca, Costume Designer

Miklós Sebestyén, Marquis of Calatrava, Padre Guardiano

Luis Cansino, Don Carlo

Mary Elizabeth Williams, Leonora

Gwyn Hughes Jones, Don Alvaro

Justina Gringytė, Preziosilla, Curra

Donald Maxwell, Fra Melitone

Alun Rhys-Jenkins, Trabuco

Wyn Pencarreg, Alcade

Welsh National Opera Chorus

Welsh National Opera Orchestra

Welsh National Opera’s Dutchman docks in Birmingham

Rohan Shotton, 7th May

This bracing performance of The Flying Dutchman is a powerful reminder of the extraordinary musical standards which are at risk in the face of WNO’s subsidy cuts.

****1

A magnificent Tosca from Welsh National Opera at the Mayflower

David Truslove, 3rd October

WNO imports Edward Dick’s exceptionally fine production, which benefits from from superb casting and outstanding performances led by Natalya Romaniw.

*****

Bancroft and BBCNOW at the Proms: a deeply satisfying Mahler 3

David Karlin, 11th August

Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales provide a Mahler 3 of exceptional clarity and forward momentum, with terrific posthorn solos from Corey Morris and Beth Taylor an outstanding soloist.

****1

A dark and disturbing Rigoletto from WNO at the Mayflower

David Truslove, 14th November

Fine performances in a punchy new production that coats this tragic opera in a large dollop of debauchery.

****1

WNO stages Death in Venice for the first time and it’s a triumph

Mark Valencia, 7th March

Olivia Fuchs solves the problems of Britten's thorny opera in a brilliant new production that hits the heights, featuring Mark Le Brocq as earthbound scholar, Gustav von Aschenbach.

*****

Musical performances keep WNO's new Così afloat

Mark Valencia, 6th March

Max Hoehn takes Così‘s subtitle, La scuola degli amanti (The School for Lovers), and connects it to Monty Python’s sex education sketch in The Meaning of Life. What larks, eh?

***11

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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.