Die Walküre, the next chapter in the 'authentic' Ring conducted by Kent Nagano is a marvel of narrative musical splendour. And although the 'nineteenth-century' sound here provides less of a surprise than with predecessor Das Rheingold, this is a breathtaking journey through the first day of the Ring.   © Simon Van Boxtel / NTR In the year 2021, we were offered an encounter with a Wagner opera in a performance based on historical research. The result of this historically-informed performance of Das Rheingold exceeded all expectations and dispelled the possible reservations one coul ..read more

Music comes with images. A record comes with a cover. To listen to an opera is to look with your ears. Music can unlock a world in the mind waiting to be made visible. And an AI-image generator can be a handy tool for that. After previously toying around with prompt design, resulting in the image gallery of Der Ring des Nibelungen in Steampunk-style, Wagner & Heavy Metal goes to Legoland. Music from my adult life staged with the toys of my early childhood. A versatile toy, you can make anything with it, which perhaps because of its limitation is still so popular. It's like buildi ..read more

A concert performance of Siegfried where the orchestra presents itself as the ideal medium to experience Wagner. Because with Wagner, as nothing else in the world of opera, the music is the staging. Karina Canellakis At the end of Die Walküre, Wagner lights a fire with orchestral means. A fire that is both earthly and magical. It is a fire in which you see the flames twirl. It is a fire in which you hear a world come to life. Listening to Wagner is like watching with your ears. And this moment - the moment when the magic fire, lit by Loge, invoked by Wotan, with which Brünnhilde is safely sh ..read more

Time's never up for the hard-edged and multicoloured metal of LIVING COLOUR. After more than three decades in the business the New York-quartet still enchants the senses with craftsmanship & passion. The 1980s were drawing to a close. The decade in which bands like Rush and Metallica did deliver their best work, but also the decade in which pop music largely lost me as a listener. The sound of the 1980s was the sound of music in a blister pack. Music whose kitsch stuck so nasty to the eardrums that the sound of names like Spandau Ballet and Cock Robin make the hai ..read more

The Dutch National Opera's new production places Lohengrin in a barren factory hall. A place where amid the bleakness of everyday life the promise of a miracle is cultivated. A place that hosts a performance in which singers, orchestra and conductor excel. Lohengrin is perhaps his most lyrical opera. Completed in the year before his involvement in the Dresden revolution of 1849 caused him to take refuge in Switzerland to escape arrest. From his Swiss exile, Richard Wagner urged his close friend (and soon-to-be father-in-law) Franz Liszt to arrange the premiere of Lohengrin. (That premier ..read more

La Monnaie in Brussels opens the new season with a world premiere. In their first opera, Belgian composer Bernard Foccroulle and librettist Matthew Jocelyn touch on a very topical theme: environmental activism and social inertia. About voices that are not heard. ©Karl Foster The weather was more than appropriate. With 30 degrees in September (we are in the hottest summer ever recorded worldwide), Le Monnaie in Brussels hosted the world premiere of Cassandra, an opera with climate change as its theme. Divided into thirteen scenes, it alternates the story of the Trojan princess Cassandra, whos ..read more

After his 2017 production of Salome, Ivo van Hove returns to The Dutch National Opera with Kurt Weill's "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.  After his successful Salome (2017), Ivo van Hove returns to The Dutch National Opera with Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. That return was postponed for three years because the originally planned performances of this production were cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid lockdown. Last year this production was seen at Opera Vlaanderen. Now The Dutch National Opera is opening the new 2023/2024 season with it. © Matthias & Clärchen Baus In ..read more

Opera Vlaanderen opens the new season with Milo Rau's production of Mozart's La Clemenza dit Tito. A performance in which Rau unleashes his "theater of reality" on Mozart's last opera, creating two performances in one. A performance of Mozart's opera on the one hand and that of the director's story on the other. A schizophrenic production that will undoubtedly split minds. © Annemie Augustijn Mozart composed La Clemenza di Tito just before his death, in a time frame of 3 months (there is even mention of 18 days, it was a rush job anyway) on the occasion of the coronation of Leopold II ..read more

​Bayreuth is over and I look back, satisfied and somewhat nostalgic (you never know when you'll be back). What the two productions I've seen (Parsifal and Tannhäuser) have made abundantly clear is that nothing compares to the thrill of a live performance. There was some playing around with Augmented Reality in Parsifal. That means, for the limited part of the audience who had access to AR glasses. The result, according to the reviews I've read about it, didn't add anything essential to an otherwise conventional production. The graphics resembled a video game from 10 years ago. Everything ..read more

A tale in images of Der Ring des Nibelungen for which inspiration was sought in Steampunk. The images were generated with AI software. ​In this part: Götterdämmerung, the third and last day of the Steampunk Ring After the opera that bears his name, Siegfried takes some quality time with Brünnhilde. He now has a life he did not know before. Not that he has now become a proper family man. He is still a rascal, some tableware occasionally breaks, but he leads, especially for a hero who killed a dragon, a relatively quiet life.  Prologue Weaving the Rope of Destiny, the Norns  ..read more