English - English National Opera Presents Duke Bluebeard’s Castle at the London Coliseum
Opera-Online
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5d ago
Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, with a libretto by Béla Balázs, is a one act Symbolist opera, based on the French folk legend as told by Charles Perrault. Bartók originally composed it in 1911, but made quite a few modifications before it premiered at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest on 24 May 1918. Lasting around an hour, and involving just two singing characters, it tells the story of when Bluebeard brings his new wife Judith to his castle for the first time.  When they arrive all is dark, and Bluebeard actually offers Judith the chance to leave, which she rejects. She ..read more
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English - First Rate Performances in Revival of David Alden’s Jenufa at the London Coliseum
Opera-Online
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1w ago
Jenůfa, which premiered in Brno in 1904, is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer. It is based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová, and is one of the very first operas to be written in prose. Set in a Moravian village in the nineteenth century, the plot concerns a series of tangled relationships, deriving from the fact that two brothers died leaving behind both children and stepchildren. The elder brother married a widow, and thus became stepfather to her son Laca, before having Števa with her. The younger son married twice, and had ..read more
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English - Sarah Angliss’s Giant Enjoys its London Premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Opera-Online
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2w ago
Giant, with music by Sarah Angliss and libretto by Ross Sutherland, was commissioned by Britten Pears Arts and first appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2023. It explores the relationship between the eighteenth century British surgeon John Hunter and Charles Byrne who, measuring seven feet, seven inches (judged by his skeletal remains) was known as ‘The Irish Giant’. Following Byrne’s death in 1783, Hunter arranged for his body to be stolen while it was on its way to Margate in order to study it. This went against Byrne’s express wishes, who had specifically planned a burial at sea in order ..read more
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English - Third Revival of Tim Albery’s The Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Opera-Online
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3w ago
The Flying Dutchman, which premiered in Dresden in 1843, is the fourth of Richard Wagner’s thirteen operas, and considered to be his first mature one. This is because it is the first still to be regularly staged, with Wagner himself having ruled that the three that preceded it should never be performed at his Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. The composer had been inspired to write the opera following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in 1839, and the story is taken from Heinrich Heine’s retelling of the legend, which possibly originated in the seventeenth century, in his 1833 satiric ..read more
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English - Good Music and Too Much “Maschera” For This “Ballo” at the Liceu
Opera-Online
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1M ago
The high musical level reached in Un Ballo in maschera that in the last days has been offered at Liceu has managed to bring success to the performances, which otherwise  in the strictly theatrical scope would have been a failure. The main merit in the triumph of this Ballo must be attributed to maestro Riccardo Frizza, who managed to get the orchestra to offer one of the best performances of the season. Frizza got from the instrumental ensemble the relatively restrained, intimate and somewhat chamber-like sound that Verdi wanted for this opera. There were details of great sound quality an ..read more
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English - Fourteenth Revival of Jonathan Miller’s The Barber of Seville at the London Coliseum
Opera-Online
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1M ago
Several composers have based operas on plays in Pierre Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy, which comprises The Barber of Seville (1775), The Marriage of Figaro (1784) and The Guilty Mother (1792). By far the most famous of these were written by Mozart, whose 1786 opera has its origins in the second, and Rossini, who in 1816 utilised the first for his own comic masterpiece.  Like Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier that were to follow, The Barber of Seville is the story of an ageing man attempting to put himself between two young lovers. Coun ..read more
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English - Missy Mazzoli's The Listeners opens Opera Philadelphia's 2024-25 season
Opera-Online
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1M ago
For its 2024-25 season, Opera Philadelphia welcomes the American premiere of Missy Mazzoli's opera The Listeners (following its premiere at Oslo Opera in 2022), as well as Chevalier de Saint-Georges Joseph Bologne's rare comic opera L'Amant Anonyme. Philadelphia may not be the most vibrant of American cities when it comes to opera, but its Academy of Music (home of the Opera Company of Philadelphia) boasts the oldest opera house within the United States to be continuously in use for its original purpose since its founding in 1855. The Opera Company of Philadelphia has announced its (short) 202 ..read more
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English - An Intense and Engaging Production of The Handmaid’s Tale at the London Coliseum
Opera-Online
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1M ago
Written in 1998 to a libretto by Paul Bentley, Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale is based on Margaret Atwood’s eponymous novel of 1985. This means that when he wrote it no-one had even heard of Bruce Miller’s television series that aired in 2017. English National Opera first staged the work in 2003, and then introduced a new production by ENO’s Artistic Director Annilese Miskimmon in 2022. This version has now returned, under revival director James Hurley, and, if anything, feels even stronger than before. With six principals reprising their roles from two years ago, and many others being ..read more
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English - Christof Loy’s New and Nuanced Production of Elektra at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Opera-Online
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2M ago
Based on the Sophocles tragedy, Richard Strauss’s Elektra of 1909 represents the first of his several collaborations with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who in this instance had already written an eponymous play. It is the second of Strauss’s two highly modernist operas, and deploys dissonance, chromaticism and extremely fluid tonality to an even greater degree than his first, Salome.  The opera is expressionistic in every sense since the adaptation of the story focuses very much on Elektra herself, and thus penetrates her character and psychology to a remarkable degree. The story ..read more
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English - Calixto Bieito’s Old Carmen Still Full of Strength at the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Opera-Online
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2M ago
The Liceu has opened the year with a revival that is also a birthday party. In 1999, the Peralada Festival commissioned Calixto Bieito to stage direct a new production of Carmen. In 2010 and 2015 this Carmen, which has travelled to more than 70 theatres around the world, could be seen at Liceu. Now, on the 25th anniversary of the premiere, it has returned once again to the Barcelona stage. Carmen was the title that placed Bieito's name in the international panorama of opera stage direction. Carmen, especially in the first part, presents us with situations of intense eroticism, not a subtl ..read more
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