BREAKING NEWS: Opera & Ballet

Contemporary Parable: The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Finnish National Opera

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Bates – The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs – John Moore
Laurene Powell Jobs – Sarah Zieba
Chrisann Brennan – Hanna Rantala
Kobun Chino Otogawa – Wu Wei
Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak – Mika Pohjonen
Paul Jobs – Ville Rusanen
Teacher – Anu Ontronen

Finlands nationaloperas kör, Suomen kansallisoopperan orkesteri / Michael Christie.
Stage director – Kevin Newbury.

Suomen kansallisooppera ja -baletti – Finlands nationalopera och -balett, Helsinki, Finland. Friday, September 18th, 2026.

To open its 2026 – 27 season, the Finnish National Opera is offering us the European premiere of Mason Bates’ opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. Since its premiere in Santa Fe in 2017, the work has already received seven revivals throughout North America, in places as diverse as San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Calgary. Almost a decade later, this always enterprising house has invited the conductor of that premiere run, Michael Christie, to lead Kevin Newbury’s original Santa Fe staging. In the title role is John Moore who has already sung Jobs in several of those North American productions, while Wu Wei appears in the role of Kobun Chino Otogawa, as he did in Santa Fe, with the remainder of the cast made up of members of the house’s regular roster.

Photo: © Ilkka Saastamoinen

With a libretto by Mark Campbell, Bates’ first opera covers the life of Steve Jobs, from his childhood, when his father created a workbench for him, to his brutal management style and humiliation of his former partner, Chrisann Brennan, with whom he had a daughter, to his later marriage to Laurene Powell. Campbell’s libretto doesn’t follow a linear path. Instead, he juxtaposes episodes from Jobs’ final years with those early periods, displaying the complexity of a man who embraced the meditation of Buddhism, while also capturing the breakdown of Jobs’ relationship with his old friend, Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak, with whom he made his first technological breakthroughs. Far from lionizing Jobs, Campbell’s libretto, and by extension Bates’ music, show both the visionary and the ugly in the life of someone who led a transformation in how we relate to ourselves and to others. While the libretto is realistically written and has a few moments of rather fruity language, it never seems clichéd or hackneyed, but feels an utterly genuine representation of a complex figure and those around him.

Photo: © Ilkka Saastamoinen

Bates’ score sits very much in a kind of middle-of-the-road Americana. There are echoes of Copland and Gershwin, but also echoes of Wagner and, in an LSD-fuelled episode, also of Bach. There are some really big brassy outbursts that required John Moore’s Jobs to ride a tumult from the pit, but there are several passages of complicated syncopation that demanded a lot from the house chorus. Bates makes use of electronics to enhance the orchestral sound at times – the opening seemed to combine both electronics redolent of computers with woozy strings that seemed to come from Hollywood. Bates is clearly a confident orchestrator, giving us a range of orchestral textures that run from the big optimistic brass-fuelled outbursts that characterize Jobs’ views of the future of technology, with simple, guitar-accompanied intimacy that characterized Jobs and Powell’s love for each other. His word-setting is also confident. While he certainly pushed the title role in some big heroic writing, Bates’ writing for the voices didn’t consist of awkward leaps, but remained generally singable – the exception being a long, sustained passage of high writing for Wozniak as he broke with Jobs.

Photo: © Ilkka Saastamoinen

Newbury’s staging was efficient. It was relatively utilitarian in scope, with five large panels that were moved around on stage, to provide constantly-changing visuals. The panels themselves were used as video screens, upon which were projected images, by 59 Studio, to set the scene. Whether vistas of sunset or a forest, as Jobs and Brennan experienced their LSD trip, or projections of Jobs’ face during his closing memorial, they managed to set the scene for a narrative that could, in other hands, have become rather confusing. Newbury moved the chorus around efficiently, assisted by choreographer Chloe Treat, with their movements around the stage providing an additional visual layer to that constructed by the blocks. The relationships between the characters were also realistic and organic – no gesturing to the front here; instead, the characters clearly related to each other, making their relationships utterly believable.

Photo: © Ilkka Saastamoinen

Christie led the house orchestra in a challenging assignment for them. This will have been the first time they’d played a production of this score, but they played it with the utmost confidence, remarkably so given the demands on them in terms of tone colour, rhythm, and articulation. They approached this demanding score with a clarity of approach, rewarding Christie with playing that reflected exceptionally detailed rehearsal work. Of course, Christie is, by now, intimately familiar with the work given his long history with it, and he led the evening in a logical, organic way, with no sense of dragging or lack of forward momentum. The singing of the chorus, prepared by Marge Mehilane, was quite simply exceptional. There are very few choruses in the world who can sing with this kind of discipline of tone, total unanimity of approach in dynamics, and absolutely impeccable rhythmic attack. To do that and execute the complex stage movements while offering singing of staggering accuracy of pitching is truly remarkable. They have a new Peter Grimes planned in November, I simply cannot wait to hear them in that score.

Photo: © Ilkka Saastamoinen

The role of Jobs is present on stage for virtually the entirety of the evening. This is a massive assignment for the baritone who sings him and Moore most certainly rose to the occasion. He’s required to come out and sing big, soaring phrases over roaring brass almost immediately. He wasn’t helped by being initially placed so far back on stage, but once he came to the front, Moore carried over the band with ease. His somewhat soft-grained baritone has easy reach on top and he was able to pull back on the tone charmingly in his romantic declarations to Powell. She was taken by Sarah Zieba, a member of the house’s young singers’ program. Zieba is the owner of a charming, peaches-and-cream-toned soprano. She obviously has a well-schooled technique and an elegant line, dipping with poise into a generous chestiness. Perhaps it was first-night nerves, but I did have a sense that intonation wasn’t quite optimal in the closing scene, but I have no doubt this will settle as the run proceeds.

Photo: © Ilkka Saastamoinen

Mika Pohjonen sang Wozniak’s music in his robust, bulky tenor. I must admit hearing him made me very much want to hear his Herodes – a role I have no doubt he’d excel in. Pohjonen confidently dispatched the full range of the part, from a rich baritonal bottom; while he sustained the long high passages as his relationship with Jobs collapsed with confidence. Wu returned to the role of Kobun Chino Otogawa which he sang in a warm, resonant bass, encapsulating the character’s inner serenity. As Brennan, Hanna

Spring Awakening

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:19:22 +0000

Paolo Santalucia’s first production as Artistic Director of Soulpepper is a pretty bold choice. It’s Frank Wedekind’s 1891 drama Spring Awakening (Frühlings Erwachen) and it’s presented in English in Santalucia’s adaptation; not in the form of the Broadway musical adaptation which is probably better known in the anglosphere.

I approached the play with some trepidation. It features rape, child abuse, suicide, sadism and a botched abortion among other themes and it’s three hours long so I wasn’t expecting a fun evening at the theatre. Perhaps even more uncomfortable philosophically it’s about how young people were moulded to be model provincial Germans by essentially totalitarian methods. What’s remarkable about this version is that, while it doesn’t shy away from the grimmer elements of the plot, it finds hope and even joy and humour. The kids will survive; at least those who do survive.

At the core of the play is a trio of young people. There’s rebellious, atheist, sexually aware and very bright Melchior Gabor (Jake Bunyan) who has learnt to survive in the repressive, violent, exam driven school system (1). There’s his pal Moritz Stiefel (Jake Cohen) who is on the brink of academic failure and troubled by puberty but sexually naive. And, finally, Melchior’s love interest Wandla Bergman (Olivia Neary-Hatton); a vivacious and pretty fifteen year old who is kept in complete ignorance of matters sexual with tragic results. All three actors do a superb job of portraying their characters which, given their inexperience, does credit to them, to Santalucia and to the more experienced actors around them.

The pivotal incidents of the play are all true to its spirit but depart significantly in detail. When Melchior beats Wandla he doesn’t lose his temper or use his fists. It’s much more like he is indulging her. The rape is somewhat ambiguous. It can’t be termed “consensual” because Wandla has no idea what’s going on but there’s no violence. Melchior’s trial and transfer to a reformatory only involves his parents indirectly and is staged with just him, the sadistic schoolmaster Knockenbrûch (Diego Matamoros) and the equally unpleasant headmaster (Daren A. Herbert) on stage. The mysterious figure in the final scene is neither a masked man (as in the original) or a gravedigger (as in the National theatre version) but Ilse (Anaka Maharaj-Sandhu), the girl who has run off to the city to be an “artist’s model”. These changes largely serve to lighten the mood; especially the last, which suggests there is yet a future for Melchior.

The other things that serve to make this very watchable are the vivacity of the other young people; the other schoolboys Hansy (Noah Beemer), Robert (EJ Candelaria), Ernst (Justin Eddy), George (Eric Miracle) and Otto (Mackenzie Wojcik) and Wandla’s girlfriends Martha (Jasmine Case) and Thea (Raylene Harewood). It’s often very physical with people running around all over the place and lots of laughter. Very teenage in fact. The other interesting contrast is the mothers. Frau Gabor (Rachel Duffy) is kind and liberal and does her best to make, especially, Moritz’ life more tolerable while Frau Bergman (Lilsa Repo-Martell) seems quite unable to cope with burgeoning sexuality of her teenage daughter; despite having another, married daughter and three grandsons. Several actors double up on minor roles like the boys in the reformatory and a whole raft of characters are cut altogether; probably to advantage.

The energy of the production is enhanced by the very clever set (Shannon Lea Doyle) which reconfigures seamlessly to provide a variety of spaces from a bedroom to a graveyard. There’s also some very effective sound (Thomas Ryder Payne) and lighting (Kevin Lamotte) design which is particularly atmospheric in the events which close each act. Ming Wong’s costumes are just period enough and she creates one of the best animated corpses I’ve ever seen for the last scene where Moritz confronts Melchior in the churchyard.

I think staging Spring Awakening is a bold gamble but it comes off. The adaptation and direction are on point, the young actors excel and get excellent support from their elders and the production values are very high indeed. It’s a German 19th century classic updated just enough to make it accessible to today’s audience without losing it’s bite. It’s a great start to Santalucia’s tenure at Soulpepper.

Spring Awakening runs in the Bailie Theatre at the Young Centre until October 18th but they have already announced a couple of extensions so that may change!

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz

fn1: I may be identifying too closely here. Parallels with my own experience as a scholarship boy at an English public school in the 1960/70s weren’t quite as violent but there are similarities.

Matejča/Koba/Prague RSO/Grandy - Debussy, Kučera, Schulhoff, and Ravel, 15 September 2026

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:17:46 +0000

Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum

Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Jan Kučera: Double Concerto for violin and cello (world premiere)
Schulhoff: Symphony no.1, op.50
Ravel: Boléro

Daniel Matejča (violin)

Sakura Toba (cello)

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

Elias Grandy (conductor)

Images: (c) Dvořákova Praha

Founded at the dawn of the wireless age in 1926 as the twenty-strong Radiojournal Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (Symfonický orchestr Českého rozhlasu) will celebrate its centenary throughout the coming season. A little later this month, that season’s opening concert will recreate its opening programme, offering music by Smetana, Beethoven, Dvořak, and Fibich. As a prelude, this concert, part of the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival (Dvořákova Praha), welcomed its new chief conductor and artistic director Elias Grandy and renewed its record in new music, then and now, Czech and otherwise, albeit with somewhat unexpected results.

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune has often been claimed as the dawn of modern music. It depends, of course, what one means – even the Bible has two creation stories – but Debussy’s softly subversive tone-poem has as good a claim as any—and was not three decades old when Josef/Jožka Charvat, a pupil of Janáček lifted his baton for that first concert. The performance’s mood was felt in its opening flute solo, which lightly yet unmistakeably infected the orchestra, or so it seemed. I mean no disrespect to Grandy when I say it is better not to pay too much attention to the conductor’s workings here, especially one so outwardly demonstrative, but crucially it did not feel over-conducted. At any rate, due languor – that inescapable word here – was elicited, with outstanding playing here and elsewhere from the orchestra, its warmth just the faunish thing, subsequent arabesques suggestive and provocative. Tristan und Isolde was in the air, but it was also a memory—like the faun’s amorous escapades, imaginary or real. Harps told us much, as did crotales. Time was almost up for a magical, deceptively light opening that left one wanting more.

The world premiere of Jan Kučerá’s Double Concerto for violin and cello was a more puzzling affair: not only in relative but more-or-less absolute terms the least advanced work in musical language, form, and much else, of the four on offer, though all but a century newer than the latest (Ravel’s Boléro). Does that matter? Not necessarily, though we are not talking about Webern or Varèse here. What concerned me more was an almost televisual sectionalism to the outward movements, suggesting they might accompany a broadcast we could not see and without which they did not, at least to my ears, make a great deal of sense. The first of three movements opened promisingly enough, with a cello solo as Romantic cry de profundis from Sakura Toba, soon joined in violin-cello duet by the similarly excellent Daniel Matejča, both soloists collaborating well in what soon became rather jolly. It was not exactly ‘like’ Prokofiev, but there was a good deal of ‘side-slipping’ and, at its best a welcome sense of theatricality. Continuing in neo-Romantic vein, it was for the most part well-fashioned, but the agglomerative sense, without much in the way of transition, of section after section here and in the finale soon began to pall. The central slow movement, a lullaby, cohered better, its opening suggesting something darker, a little more adventurous, although unabashedly tonal: more in texture, then, than in harmony. Its melodic thread had just enough elements of unpredictability to hold one’s attention. A fiddling rondo theme announced the third movement, thereafter shared with cello, provoking a more lyrical response: very much what one might have expected, prior to a puzzling, once again ‘Russian’ waltz interlude and double cadenza. The piece received an enthusiastic reception, however nonplussed I may have been.

Erwin Schulhoff’s 1925 First Symphony packed, by contrast, quite a punch: perhaps not entirely successful, but largely so and always intriguing. This was new music to me in the most straightforward sense. Its first movement was haunted by pentatonicism and by Stravinsky—but perhaps not the Stravinsky one might have expected, that of Le Rossignol. Schulhoff here was already assured enough to engage in Stravinskian theft from the master himself, thereafter to proceed along a different, Neue Sachlichkeit path. Rhythm and harmonic rhythm evinced theatricality, but as a view from the concert hall. Was that Debussy’s Prélude in the air of the second of three movements, an ‘Andante con moto’? If not, programming and performance cunningly suggested it, alongside darker, Berg-like material in which the Prague strings truly excelled. This is how to do allusion—and illusion. Grandy shaped its progress well without undue moulding, likewise in a finale that intensified many of these tendencies in an assured, committed performance.

Boléro did its thing, resonating with invigorating splendour and clarity in the main hall of the Rudolfinum. Solo spots brought, in context, reminiscence of other works: flute, naturally, with Debussy and bassoon with Schulhoff. But Ravel’s piece was only ever itself in a reading that built in carefully constructed colour. Each of the soloists clearly enjoyed their moment, none more so than the trombonist. My sole cavil was the way Grandy pulled around, even mauled, the close. Yes, there must be, can hardly not be, a wrench, but that comes of itself. It was a pity, but not enough to undo an otherwise fine performance and concert.

The Way Appears

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:34:23 +0000

The Way Appears is a CD by cellist duo Leah Plave and India Gailey. It consists of seven commissioned pieces by young(ish) Canadian composers who were asked to create pieces in which the two instruments function as equal partners rather than, say, as soloist and continuo. It’s a really varied and interesting collection providing a little over forty minutes of music.

Right up front there’s an interesting contrast between Emily Kennedy’s conversational but rather busy Triptych and Adam Vincent Clarke’s Voix Lointaines which is much more elegiac with some vocalisation thrown in.

The title track, by Kelly Marie-Murphy, is the longest piece on the disk and is basically in three parts. It starts fast, almost frantic, with scoops and repeated figures before seguing into a slower conversation with repeated fragments; bowed on one instrument, pizzicato on the other before reverting to the faster style with both instruments bowed.

silhouette, mirror by Leilehua Lanzilotti might be the most “out there” of the seven pieces. It starts out slow and evocative, abstract but tactile but then it gets weirder with the cellos rumbling, squeaking and echoing each other. And that’s a real contrast with Matthias McIntire’s Islands which is lush and lyrical with no weird effects at all!

Surfacing, by Jeff Reilly, is superficially quite simple; built up of simple figures radiating out to produce some quite long riffs which are actually quite hypnotic. The record concludes with my favourite piece, The Bee and Her Wildflower by Cree composer Cris Derksen, who died in a traffic accident just before the recording was completed. It starts as a sort of upbeat pastoral celebrating pollination that gets livelier and almost dance like. It’s definitely a “happy” piece.

The recording was made at Trinity-St. Stephen’s United Church, Nemcheboogwek, Mi’kma’ki / Amherst, Nova Scotia in April 2026 and it’s very transparent and detailed with a very solid soundstage. It’s being released as a physical CD and in lossless digital at up to 96kHz/24bit quality, which is what I listened to. It will also be available on streaming platforms including in Dolby ATMOS. There’s a booklet with excellent notes. Release date is October 30th, 2026.

Catalogue information: Redshift Records TK595

Britten – « En francais! »

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:39:17 +0000

French tenor Cyrille Dubois has collected some of the better known Britten works “en français” for this recording. One normally hears these works performed by English singers in what is pretty much an “official” Britten style so I was intrigued to hear them interpreted by a native French speaker, albeit one with a track record of performing Britten’s operas, song cycles and choral works!

The first piece is the early Quatre chansons françaises, performed with orchestra in this case the Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est with David Reiland conducting. The singing here is quite stylish and distinctly French; perhaps a little more emphatic than one is accustomed too but it works. The orchestra copes admirably with the dense and colourful orchestral writing. It includes Paul Verlaine’s “Chanson d’automne” with the famous opening “Les sanglots longs des violins” though in 1928 the composer could not have known the significance that line would assume later.

Next there are eight of the French folksong arrangements; a couple of which I don’t think I’d heard before. Here Dubois is accompanied by Tristan Raës on piano. These are very different from Britten and Pears’ recordings. They have more contrast of mood and tempo and sound much more French. One really gets it in “Le roi s’en va-t’en chasse”: where Dubois adopts distinctly different voices for the narrator, the king and the shepherdess. It’s interesting ad rather effective.

The most substantial piece on the record is Les Illuminations. I’ve struggled with this piece in the past, finding it not only obscure but often strident. That wasn’t my impression here at all! Dubois seems under no strain at all and sounds almost conversational in “Royauté” and quite witty in “Parade”. The orchestra is well able to follow the singer’s changing moods as well as sounding very grand where it needs to. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this piece with more pleasure.

But there’s more… they are not listed on the cover or in the booklet but there are piano accompanied versions of four English language songs; “Sally Gardens”, “Last Rose of Summer”, “O Can Ye Sew Cushions” and “O Waly, Waly”. It’s interesting because while in the previous pieces Dubois sounds frencher than anyone I’ve heard sing them here he sounds like a very English tenor. He even manages a restrained Scots inflection in “O Can Ye Sew Cushions”. They are really rather good.

The recording was made in April 2026 at l’Arsenal Jean-Marie Rausch – Cité musicale-Metz. It’s clear and detailed even in the CD resolution files I had access to. It’s also available as lossless 96kHz/24bit and MP3. There’s no physical release. The booklet is definitely worth a read to get an idea of how deep in this repertoire Dubois is. It also contains the French texts with English translations.

All in all this is a really interesting and enjoyable recording that has some really interesting insights into some well known pieces.

Catalogue information: Aparte music AP438

Schumpeter and Amazon – Coming and Going

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 21:14:29 +0000

The Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) is famous for his use of the concept of Creative Destruction. It describes how capitalism advances: new products, technologies, and business methods displace established ones. The innovations that create wealth and improve productivity also destroy older businesses and jobs. For Schumpeter, this continual upheaval was the central engine of capitalism. Amazon represents how the same company can be both the instigator and victim of creative destruction within a very short time frame.

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 in Bellevue, Washington, and began selling books online in July 1995. After going public in 1997, it expanded into music, electronics, clothing, and other merchandise, pursuing rapid growth despite years of losses. Its marketplace for independent sellers helped turn it into an enormous digital shopping center, while Amazon Prime, introduced in 2005, encouraged customer loyalty through a subscription offering fast shipping. In 2006, Amazon launched the cloud-computing services that made Amazon Web Services a major business; the Kindle followed in 2007, and the Alexa-powered Echo in 2014. The acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 extended its reach into physical grocery stores. In 2021, Andy Jassy succeeded Bezos as chief executive, with Bezos becoming executive chairman. Amazon’s expansion transformed retailing and computing while attracting criticism over working conditions, market power, and its treatment of independent sellers. Today it has a market cap greater than $2.7 trillion.

Amazon thus is the perfect example of a massive instigator of creative destruction. It resembles Mel Brooks’s fictional corporation Engulf and Devour. Yet chinks in its business model are becoming visible. Many of the threats are invisible to the individual customer. I’ll discuss them below. Here’s one that directly involves its customers.

I’ve been a regular user of the company for more than 20 years. I’ve been very satisfied with its service, but about a year ago strange things began to happen. Deliveries would go astray. I started to get messages that my order could not be delivered even though it had arrived. It was sent back to wherever it came from, or I was told that another attempt at delivery would be made. None of these second attempts ever succeeded. Then deliveries that had arrived locally were sent back with no claim of a second attempt. I was given a refund for each item. If I still wanted them, I had to reorder them. Sometimes this second order would suffer the same fate as the first. On one occasion, I had to order the same product four times before I got it.

I can only guess why this bizarre practice started happening in 2025 when prior to this it had never happened once. Around that time, Amazon started to phase out using UPS for its last-mile delivery. Amazon now delivers the vast majority of its packages using its own network.

Here’s my guess about what’s happening. Again, it’s only a guess. I suspect that Amazon doesn’t have enough drivers and/or vehicles to handle the daily volume of deliveries required. When I spoke to an Amazon representative about the problem, it disappeared for a few weeks.This respite was only temporary as the problem resurfaced a few weeks later. It may be that the local delivery people kept an eye out for my stuff for a short time before returning to standard operating procedure.

If the above explanation is correct, I don’t know if the problem is local or systemic. It may well be that the delivery service in Lubbock is understaffed or underequipped. Other locales may not have this problem. So I have no way of knowing whether this problem is unique to my location or is a general problem resulting from Amazon’s change in last-mile service.

Here are some other problems Amazon faces. I have no knowledge of how pervasive they are. The first relates to what I have just described above. Deterioration of the shopping experience: Amazon’s appeal depends on making purchases easy and dependable. Failed deliveries, unreliable merchandise, questionable reviews, and search results crowded with advertisements can undermine that advantage. The danger is that extracting more revenue from each transaction eventually drives customers away.

Competitors eroding its convenience advantage: Walmart’s stores double as nearby delivery centers, making it a particularly serious rival for groceries and everyday purchases. Walmart reported global online sales growth of 23% in its latest quarter. As alternatives become equally convenient, shoppers have less reason to make Amazon their automatic first choice.

Some time ago I wrote a piece stating that Walmart was in big trouble. Their attempts to match Amazon’s convenience and efficiency were not up to par. But they have greatly improved both the convenience and efficiency of their delivery service. One no longer has to go to a Walmart store to rapidly receive virtually everything they sell. Groceries and items that require refrigeration rapidly arrive. This improvement in service threatens Amazon’s model.

The cost of defending its cloud business and pursuing AI is challenging. Amazon Web Services supplied approximately 60% of Amazon’s operating income in the second quarter of 2026. Competition affecting that business therefore matters disproportionately. Meanwhile, investment primarily related to AI pushed Amazon’s trailing annual free cash flow to negative $7.6 billion. The risk is that expensive computing capacity becomes obsolete or produces insufficient returns.

If consumers ask an independent AI assistant to find and purchase products across retailers, they may bypass Amazon’s search pages and sponsored listings. This could weaken both its advertising business and its control over the customer relationship-even when Amazon still delivers the purchase. Retailers are already wrestling with this shift.

In Schumpeter’s terms, the central vulnerability is that the company that made shopping easier can itself be displaced if someone else makes it easier still.

Walden

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 13:41:44 +0000

Walden by Amy Berryman is currently being presented by Icarus Theatre at The Theatre Centre. It’s set in the United States in a not too distant future where the impacts of climate change have become acute. Summer temperatures in New England push 50C and millions die in tsunamis but social cohesion (such as it is in the USA!) seems largely unaffected. Back to the Earthers flourish unhindered in the mountains but NASA is still funded to the point where it can send manned missions to the Moon or Mars.

In the play Cassie; an astronaut just returned from a year on the Moon visits her identical twin sister Stella, who is living with Bryan; a rugged Earth Advocate in a surprisingly comfortable home in the mountains despite antiquated plumbing and a dodgy generator. Life is normal to the extent one can apparently still buy a bottle of Beaune in the nearby town (though what temperatures must be lie at harvest time in Burgundy I can’t imagine).

It turns out that the girls’ father was a famous astronaut and both of them seem to have been presented at the altar of NASA at an early age (shades of Hannibal Barca here!). Cassie passed astronaut school but Stella did not. She became responsible for designing habitats for colonization missions. At this point she has left NASA and, to some extent, signed u to the EA (Earth Advocate) view that the money spent on space missions would be better spent on ameliorating conditions on Earth. Cassie is to lead a settlement mission to Mars and she wants Stella to return to NASA as part of the project. This leads to a series of conversations about what, under prevailing conditions, a “good life” is and to what extent one trades off duty and self actualization.

This is done with a pretty light touch. All three characters come off as fully human rather than cardboard cutouts. They all have baggage and are fighting their respective demons. Tragedy has touched everyone. If Bryan and Cassie are pretty secure in their beliefs, Cassie is deeply conflicted. There’s more than enough skilfully crafted material to keep one engaged for ninety minutes or so. It’s crisply directed by Erik Richards and there are excellent performances from Oshen Aoun as Bryan, Emily Anne Corcoran as Stella and, especially, Charlotte Dennis as Cassie.

There’s nothing revolutionary about Walden. It’s a series of conversations. It works better as a vehicle for exploring Thoreau’s ideas about a “good life” than as a serious discussion of climate change, its implications and our options. Indeed, the world building is rather weak. Go see it for the human element not the science or sociology.

Walden runs at The Theatre Centre until September 26th.

Photo credit: Sandro Pehar

French Operas By Italian Composers

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 23:46:11 +0000

Paris was the center of Western Culture in the 19th century. It was for this reason that Italian composers were eager to write new works for the city’s major theaters. Many of the important composers of that era were fluent in French making the task of writing a “French” opera relatively easy. Here are four operas by four Italian composers written for Paris.

Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851) composed La Vestale during his early years in Paris, setting a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy. This three-act tragédie lyrique brought together religious ritual, military spectacle, and a heroine torn between sacred duty and human love. Although Spontini had completed the score by the summer of 1805, opposition within the Paris Opéra delayed its production. The support of his patron, Empress Joséphine, helped overcome these obstacles.

The premiere took place on December 15, 1807, at the Paris Opéra, then housed in the Salle Montansier on the rue de Richelieu. Caroline Branchu sang Julia, the title character, opposite Étienne Lainez as the Roman general Licinius; Jean-Baptiste Rey conducted. The opera was an enormous success, establishing Spontini’s reputation and receiving more than two hundred performances in Paris by 1830.

Performances dwindled as the century advanced. Its last nineteenth-century appearances at the Paris Opéra were in 1854. A reasonable explanation is that its classical austerity and ceremonial pacing increasingly seemed remote beside the newer operas of Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Wagner. By the century’s end, it was chiefly an admired historical masterpiece, occasionally revived, rather than a living staple of the theater. Its later rediscovery would depend heavily on exceptional sopranos, notably Rosa Ponselle and Maria Callas.

Recent staged performances of Spontini’s La Vestale were at Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Italy, on February 28 and March 2, 2025. Carmela Remigio sang Julia, Alessandro Benigni conducted, and Gianluca Falaschi directed. A forthcoming production opens at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden on September 26, 2026, starring Sonya Yoncheva and directed by Lydia Steier.

Dedicated to Joséphine, La Vestale suited the grandeur and Roman imagery of Napoleon’s Empire. Its triumphal processions and solemn ceremonies provided an imposing public setting for an intensely personal drama. The music preserves Gluck’s seriousness and dramatic concentration while expanding the expressive possibilities of the orchestra and the sustained lyrical line. Berlioz admired the score, which helped prepare the way for nineteenth-century French grand opera.

The story takes place in ancient Rome. Returning from a victorious campaign, Licinius discovers that his beloved Julia has become a Vestal Virgin, bound to chastity and charged with tending Vesta’s sacred fire. During his triumphal celebration, she must crown him with a wreath. He arranges to meet her secretly that night. When the lovers reunite in the temple, their absorption in one another allows the sacred flame to expire. Licinius escapes, but Julia refuses to identify him and is condemned to be buried alive.

Licinius’s pleas and confession fail to persuade the religious authorities to spare her. As the sentence is being carried out, a thunderstorm erupts. Lightning ignites Julia’s veil and rekindles the sacred fire. The priests recognize the miracle as Vesta’s forgiveness: Julia is rescued, released from her vows, and permitted to marry Licinius.

“O nume tutelar,” Julia’s prayer in Act II of La Vestale, known in the original French as “Ô des infortunés, déesse tutélaire”-“O guardian goddess of the unfortunate” is the opera’s best-known aria. After the sacred flame has gone out, Julia appeals to Latona for mercy. Rosa Ponselle gives a stuningly beautiful rendition of the aria

Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) composed Médée in 1796-97, when he was already established in Paris. François-Benoît Hoffman supplied a French libretto drawing on the Medea legend, particularly its treatment by Euripides and Pierre Corneille. The three-act work belongs to the opéra-comique tradition because it combines musical numbers with spoken dialogue. Cherubini brought to this form the dramatic intensity associated with Gluck, supported by orchestral writing that gives extraordinary force to the heroine’s emotional upheavals.

The first performance took place at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris on March 13, 1797, with Julie-Angélique Scio as Médée and Pierre Gaveaux as Jason. It attracted a large audience and considerable enthusiasm for the music, acting, and spectacular scenery. Critics nevertheless objected to the first act’s length and the combination of spoken tragedy with opera; cuts began with the second performance. The work received 39 performances before disappearing from the Paris repertory in 1799.

Médée subsequently found a stronger foothold in German-speaking countries. In 1855, Franz Lachner replaced the spoken dialogue with recitatives. Carlo Zangarini’s Italian translation of this version reached La Scala in 1909. Maria Callas’s Florence revival in 1953 restored the opera to international attention and made Medea one of her defining roles. The Met performed the Italian version of the opera for the first time in 2022 with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role.

The story unfolds in ancient Corinth. Médée has betrayed her family to help Jason obtain the Golden Fleece and has borne him two children. He now abandons her to marry Dircé-called Glauce in the Italian version-the daughter of King Créon. Médée’s appeals fail, and Créon orders her into exile. She obtains one final day in the city and uses the delay to prepare her revenge.

Pretending to accept the marriage, Médée sends Dircé poisoned wedding gifts. Her rival dies, but Médée seeks a still more terrible revenge. Torn between maternal love and hatred of Jason, she finally murders their children inside the temple. She confronts their father with her bloodstained dagger and vanishes as the temple is consumed by flames.

The opera’s central dramatic challenge is to make Médée’s suffering comprehensible while preserving the horror of what she does. Its greatest opportunities for a singing actress lie in the passage from wounded tenderness through humiliation and fury to an act that destroys her own happiness along with Jason’s.

In Médée’s Act I aria “Vous voyez de vos fils la mère infortunée,” better known in Italian as “Dei tuoi figli la madre,” she appeals to Jason as the mother of his children, reminding him of everything she has sacrificed for him and begging him to return. Maria Callas performed the role at La Scala in 1953 under Leonard Bernstein’s direction.

Completed in 1843, Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal By Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) was his last completed opera and one of his most ambitious undertakings. Written in French for the Paris Opéra, it combines Italian lyricism with the elaborate machinery of French grand opera: five acts, ballet, massed choruses, and spectacular historical scenes. With a libretto by Eugène Scribe, premiered at the Paris Opéra on November 13, 1843. After this opera tertiary syphilis gradually destroyed his body and mind.

The story begins in Lisbon, where Sébastien saves Zayda, a Muslim captive, from execution by the Inquisition before departing on his African campaign. She falls in love with him. After the Portuguese army is defeated, she finds the wounded king and saves his life by promising to marry the victorious commander, Abayaldos. Sébastien remains alone on the battlefield, where he sings the opera’s celebrated tenor romance, “Seul sur la terre.” The British-American Alfred Piccaver sings the aria in its Italian version.

Les vêpres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers) is a grand opera in five acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. Verdi’s main reason for writing the opera was to achieve a major original success at the Paris Opéra, which offered international prestige and artistic opportunities beyond those available in Italy. It is now most often performed in its Italian version I vespri siciliani, that is when it’s performed at all.

The work is the orphan of Verdi’s mature works. Why it is so infrequently staged is a mystery as the opera is a masterpiece. Berlioz, as fine a music critic as he was a composer, said “Verdi has risen very high in this new work.” He praised its melodic intensity, spacious ensembles, orchestral color, and its skillful orchestral restraint. He also admired Verdi’s passionate power that unfolds gradually. His admiration encompasses the music’s control and breadth as well as its emotional force. Yet the opera remins at the frontier of the standard operatic repertory.

The opera requires a first rate soprano, tenor, baritone, and bass. It is full of great arias and ensembles. It has perhaps the finest tenor-baritone duet the composer ever wrote – Quando al mio. The singers are Plácido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes. The duet has appeared here before, but it is so good that it deserves a reprise.

“Monforte [baritone] reveals to Arrigo [tenor] that he is his son. Arrigo is torn three ways. First, he fears he will lose Elena [his fiancée] because he promised her he would kill Monforte who now turns out to be his father. Then he doesn’t know how to treat his newfound father. And finally, he recalls how badly his mother was treated by his father. At the end of this duet, he’s an emotional chimera. The skill with which Verdi handles this situation is Olympian. The main theme first sung by the baritone and later by the tenor is part of the overture, which incidentally is probably the finest Verdi ever wrote. Equally impressive is the dramatic tension that builds throughout the duet. Verdi was the master of the tenor-baritone duet and even by his lofty standard, this number stands alone. A work of genius.” This quotation is taken from my review of the complete opera as performed by the Teatro Regio di Parma.

Why are many French operas by Italian composers performed in an Italian translation? I think Italian composers subconsciously write as if the text were in Italian such that the stresses and accents work better in Italian than they do in French. The music just sounds better in Italian. A composer can set French words consciously while still imagining melody through habits formed in Italian. The instinct for where a phrase should expand, where its emotional weight should fall, and how a sustained vowel should carry it need not change completely with the language of the libretto.

Italian’s clear vowels, frequent vowel endings, and strongly marked word stresses can give a lyrical phrase a particularly satisfying shape. An Italian translation may therefore bring out something already implicit in the music-even when the notes were originally composed to French words. The original language has historical authority; it does not automatically have the greatest expressive effect for every listener. Preferring Don Carlo or La Vestale in Italian need not be merely a matter of familiarity.

Lili Elbe

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:02:58 +0000

Lili Elbe; music by Tobias Picker, libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, is an opera set in the late 1920s. The essence of the plot is the surgical transitioning from male to female of the Danish painter Einar Wegener to become Lili Elbe. It’s the first instance historically of such a transition and it deals, inter alia, with issues of identity and acceptance that still resonate today. My review of the recently released CD recording is now available at La Scena Musicale.

Catalogue informatiion: Bright Shiny Things BSTC0236

Ólafsson - Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, 10 September 2026

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:24:50 +0000

Wigmore Hall

Bach: Prelude in E major, BWV 854
Beethoven: Piano Sonata no.27 in E minor
Bach: Partita no. 6 in E minor, BWV 830
Schubert: Piano Sonata in E minor, D 566
Beethoven: Piano Sonata no.30 in E major, op.109

Vikingur Ólafsson (piano)

Three sold-out Wigmore Hall recitals, of which this was the first, marked the end or better, climax, of Vikingur Ólafsson’s tour with this programme. Intervention of a stray hearing aid reached the level of an announcement being made, the stage cleared, and a pause scheduled in what was otherwise a recital without break, for the owner to put things right. As Ólafsson disarmingly owned, he had not been too happy about it at the time, but in retrospect, taking a break and returning to Bach’s E minor Partita was an interesting experience, not least because it was what he had been doing with the programme as a whole over this tour. He thus showed himself not only an outstanding musician, but a good sport—and indeed estimable diplomat.

It was the first time I had managed to hear Ólafsson as a soloist. He clearly divides opinion, as the cliché has it. I can imagine some may not have liked his way with this music. Indeed, I had my doubts concerning the deliberate approach to the opening Bach prelude (E major, Book I). Once my ears had settled, though, crystal-clear counterpoint told its own story. There is nothing routine to his interpretative stance, which seemed, moreover, very much to have been directed towards the programme as a whole: a demonstration, as he described it at the close in eloquent as well as word-perfect English, of what tonality can do, of how late Beethoven can and should be approached not only from Romantics such as Schumann and Brahms, but also from Bach, his dizzying array of contrapuntal techniques, and their emotional instantiation as music.

Beethoven’s op.90 E minor Sonata followed, with similar, quite extraordinary clarity, although this time Ólafsson allowed himself a little pedal. I was struck by the first – and indeed second – movement’s intellectual, emotional, and sheer physical immediacy in a performance that captured to a tee this work’s position on the threshold of the ‘late’, not unlike the op.95 String Quartet. A direct performance nonetheless opened up other possibilities, without mannerism, towards the close. Its companion movement came as a breath of fresh air: contrast, yes, but above all response. Whilst strikingly different in tempo and (relatively detached) touch from how I hear the music, I found it compelling indeed. Not, I hasten to add, that it was without beautifully voiced legato, far from it, but it was not the default. Above all, there was a freshness to the conception that put me in mind, however different the results, of some of the early occasions I heard Igor Levit in this repertoire.

Bach’s E minor Partita received a rich, commanding performance, of similar clarity, its Toccata gathering pace through dynamic counterpoint. There was no question of imitating the harpsichord; this was emphatically piano music, but rethought, never quite as I had heard it before. Likewise the Allemanda and Corrente, splendidly consequent and forthright, more Klemperer than Furtwängler. The former’s harmonic deviations were well served without exaggeration, the latter characterised by a paradoxical vehement insouciance that seemed already to presage Beethoven. The Air had a sense of rightness with which it would have been pointless to argue. A dark, introverted Sarabande and rapt Tempo di Gavotta, whose complexity of form suggested Schumann, prepared the way for a final Gigue finely sprung in conventional and harmonic rhythm, its fugue a climax that itself must climax—and did.

Schubert’s early E minor Sonata was given in two-movement form, Ólafsson vigorous and, to my mind, quite justified in that preference. Performance is, of course, ultimately the justification or otherwise, with no otherwise here. The first movement’s lilt was as much a harmonic matter as anything else, laying the foundations of all to come, spun from a single thread. Its second movement offered, like its Beethovenian counterpart, a response, albeit here properly one of greater ambiguity.

Beethoven’s E major Sonata, op.109, registered with due contrast, ambiguity and ambivalence replaced with dialectics. Apology was neither required nor received for its difficulty. Its first movement in particular sounded as a synthesis of so many strands in the recital. The following ‘Prestissimo’ plunged us back to earth in battle royal, unrelenting in the best sense. Balm, not snake oil, was the mission, movingly fulfilled, of the theme to the finale. There was consolation to be felt here, but there were no easy answers. Again, haunting from the previous works could be heard, fancifully or not: Beethoven taking Schubert at his word in the first variation and Bach in the second, emboldening himself – and us – to take directions that could only be his. (This is not intended in any sense to suggest influence, but rather the coherence and meaning of programme and performance.) As the variations continued and developed, however challenging the route, thread, guide, and spirit emerged quite unbroken, quietly strengthened. Such is Beethoven and such remains his ethical force.

As an encore, we heard a transcription, Ólafsson’s own, of Bach’s so-called ‘Air on a G-string’, which he had presented to György Kurtág on his hundredth birthday. An act of love, subtly, finely arpeggiated, it was noble, direct, and ravishingly beautiful.

Romaniw/BBC SSO/Kapuła - Henze, Schubert, Mahler, and Strauss, 9 September 2026

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:33:25 +0000

Royal Albert Hall

Henze: Erlkönig: Orchestral Fantasy on Goethe’s Poem and Schubert’s op.1
Schubert: Symphony no.8 in B minor, ‘Unfinished’, D 759
Mahler, arr. Britten: What the Wild Flowers Tell Me
Strauss: Four Last Songs

Natalya Romaniw (soprano)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Paweł Kapuła (conductor)

Images: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou

September is a month of melancholy. Temperatures drop. Nights draw in ever more markedly. We return to work, studies, ‘normal life’, insofar as we have ever been away. The last gasp of the summer festival season draws to a close. For the Proms, this comes ultimately with the notorious ‘Last Night’. Occasionally I have wondered about giving it a try, if only to say that I have, but adventure takes one only so far. This year, Four Last Songs, its own ‘September’ and all, seemed a good time to bow out: Malven notwithstanding, Strauss’s farewell to the world, the Lied, the orchestra, and, in eerie familiarity once again, to a civilisation that had long since given up the ghost.

Here, we worked up to that final farewell, first of all with a composer for whom the murderous, genocidal taint of that civilisation, from which he could nonetheless never break free, would condemn it for many years to come: Hans Werner Henze. His centenary this year has been extraordinarily muted. The buzz of his Erlkönig was better than nothing, but frankly the Proms, like many other organisations, could and should have done more. From the BBC SSO and Paweł Kapuła, it made for an urgent, typically abundant, and ultimately involving concert opener, very much what it said on the ‘orchestral fantasy’ tin, Schubert recomposed by one who would like to be more Stravinskian than Schoenbergian, yet cannot help who he is—and at the last, does not even wish to. It drew one in with a hint of Romantic magic and devilry.

The concert moved to Schubert proper, in an unusually intimate, yet compelling account of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, emblematic of that German Romanticism to which Henze continued to be drawn. Its first movement was relatively swift, yet never unduly driven, urgency and chiaroscuro rightly emerging from the material, sonata form ‘becoming’ rather than merely ‘being’. The fearful hush of its liminal passages sent shivers down the spine, building thereafter in Gothic horror, albeit without exaggeration. The second movement flowed as a drama in itself that was both consequent to the first and mysteriously, ‘unfinished’ or not, a satisfying finale, even farewell, with nothing left to say. It invited us to listen and rewarded us for doing so.

The second movement from Mahler’s Third Symphony, rescored by Britten, was for me the only disappointment. It feels strange to hear this on a smaller orchestra, perhaps stranger than a more radical arrangement, but I do not think it was only that. Kapuła showed a tendency to fussiness, overtly moulding Mahler’s lines. Balances, especially earlier on, sounded odd, even on occasion inside out. Tempi never seemed quite in proportion, either a little too fast or a little too slow: not necessarily intrinsically, but in relation to one other. Later on, a welcome sense of irony tentatively asserted itself, but its motivation remained elusive.

And so, Natalya Romaniw joined orchestra and conductor for the Four Last Songs, in the hall in which they were premiered (in 1950, by Kirsten Flagstad, the Philharmonia, and Wilhelm Furtwängler). What struck me in the orchestral introduction to ‘Frühling’ was how much the sound took its cue from the Schubert performance in the first half, detail and urgency again to the fore, neither rushed nor maudlin. (None of this should be, of course, but certainly not an evocation of spring, however backward-looking.) Romaniw was crystal clear, verbally and musically, perhaps with a slight musical ‘accent’, bringing the music closer, say, to Tchaikovsky than to Mozart, but there is no one way with these songs, nor should there be. In a programme interview, she said she intended ‘to make the meaning as clear as possible to listeners, even if they don’t understand German,’ which she certainly accomplished, adding the unquestionable truth that ‘the orchestra’s music says so much as well,’ which again it did here. From soloist, orchestra, and conductor alike, there was a sense of beginning—even if the beginning of the end.

Our month, ‘September’, followed on ‘naturally’, however much art may conceal art here (an echt-Straussian idea in itself). Mood may have been changing and, more fundamentally, time passing, but this was the turning of the year (and life), nothing abrupt. The celebrated horn call was tender, moving, and paved the way for a darkened rather than dark close. Here, I am afraid I must register unhappiness with the audience, a good part of which insisted on applauding between every song, doing its damnedest to break mood and continuity. An elephantine sneeze, heard from the opposite side of the hall, was not the ideal introduction to a ‘Beim Schlafengehen’ that was nonetheless beautifully judged, imploring, and led but not determined by Hermann Hesse’s words. An exquisite violin solo soared, however soiled the cliché, like the ‘soul, unguarded … free in flight’, preparing the way for a noble close, beyond good and evil, as the avid Nietzschean composer would have understood. The final sunset of ‘Im Abendrot’ was painted in just the right colours. It lingered, yet justly no more than a little. Voice and words, moreover, were part of it, distinction between various forms of text dissolved. Larks sang, solo violin, orchestral horns, and more made their valedictory bows. It was a song, perhaps, closer to a verbal tone poem than to anything from the operas. Radiant, dignified, and beckoning a beyond in which Strauss may have claimed not to believe, it was, premature applause notwithstanding, a true last song.

Frustrating Onegin

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:23:57 +0000

My review of the Blu-ray recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, in a frustrating production by Christof Loy at the Teatro Real in Madrid in 2025, is now available at La Scena Musicale.

Catalogue information: Euroarts Blu-ray 8024248744

A spy in the Confederate White House?

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 18:37:21 +0000

Intelligence; music by Jake Heggie, libretto by Gene Scheer, is, on the face of it, a spy thriller. We are in Richmond in 1865 and Union forces are closing in on the Southern capital. Elizabeth Van Lew is a wealthy spinster who is spying for the North. She infiltrates her enslaved woman Mary Jane Bowser into the Jefferson Davis household but Mary Jane is not what she appears. She is highly intelligent, literate and has a photographic memory. No-one will think to hide sensitive information from a, presumed illiterate, slave. The relationship between the two women is complex. Mary Jane was born in Elizabeth’s father’s home but was baptised in the white church and educated in the north. She has been told that her mother died in childbirth. But all is not as it seems.

The main parts of the spy plot pay out in Act 1. A Confederate goon; Travis Briggs, is trying to establish that Elizabeth is a spy while having an affair with her sister; Callie, who also lives in the same household. He also has his eye on Mary Jane. meanwhile she has formed a relationship with the Davis’ butler Henry, despite already being married. With Travis hot on her heels, Elizabeth buries her secret journal but is seen by Callie. At the same time, Mary Jane is being visited by the disturbingly knowledgeable Lucinda who no-one else seems able to see, as well as a collection of ancestral spirits. The act ends with Mary Jane setting a fire in the Davis household to cover Henry’s escape during which she thinks she sees Lucinda consumed in the flames.

In Act 2 the focus shifts to Mary Jane’s story. The espionage plot raps up when Travis is killed; though not before he’s tried to rape Mary Jane. Mary Jane now has the secret journal and begins to realise who she really is. Lucinda too reveals her real identity. All this comes out as a slow burn and I’m not going to spoil it. It’s a compelling story and also an effective polemic against slavery, which is pretty timely given current attempts to whitewash it in Trumpistan. One thing that’s clear reading the libretto, and listening to how much dance music there is, is that this was a very visual production with heavy use of dance. It’s a pity this is not a video recording but so it goes. So, contrary to my usual practice with audio reviews, I have included some production stills.

It’s an extremely well crafted opera. The libretto is cleverly constructed to retain a high degree of suspense and tension. The music is colourful and rhythmically complex. It’s often fairrly abrasive but it also has some gorgeous lyrical passages and there are proper arias and duets. They aren’t “show off” pieces but they are moments of repose where characters get to express their feelings.

It was a commission for Houston Grand Opera and premiered there in 2023 when this audio recording was made. The singing and acting is excellent. Janai Brugger is excellent as the complex character Mary Jane. There’s an excellent chance to see what she can do in the Act 1 aria “Just one step” with its African rhythms and “mysterious” orchestration. She’s well matched by Jamie Barton as Elizabeth. Her aria in the third scene, “Look me in the eye” is the first real hint that not all is as it seems between the two women. And then there’s the wonderful J’nai Bridges as Lucinda. She sings beautifully and really conveys a sense of “otherness”. Caitlin Lynch rounds out the ladies as a perfectly acceptable Callie.

Michael Mayes really gets into the character of Travis. He’s a snarling, brutal, piece of work and is very effective. Joshua Blue plays Mary Jane’s simple but brave and loyal husband Wilson. He has a gorgeous lyrical tenor. Then there’s Nicholas Newton as the butler Henry. He does an excellent job of portraying a man who is infatuated with Mary Jane but has no idea how far out of his depth he is.

This is a really rich score and the Houston orchestra makes the most of it with crisp direction from Kwamé Ryan. The dancers, though we can’t see them, are the Urban Bush Women and one feels that their contribution to the overall impact of the show must have been huge.

It’s an SACD release and it’s superb. Despite being recorded live, the balance is just fine with no drop outs and a rock solid sound stage. The detail and immediacy are most impressive; especially the first couple of minutes of each act where it’s hard to believe it’s a recording. I listened mostly on headphones but I did sample the multi track via surround sound speakers. Both versions are stunning. It’s also available as lossless digital in 192kHz/24bit, 96kHz/24bit and 44.1kHz/16bit resolutions and as MP3. If you have the gear to play SACD though I’d strongly recommend it. There’s an excellent booklet.

My only reservation with his release is that its audio only. A Blu-ray could have been fantastic. That said this is a very fine recording of an exciting contemporary opera.

Catalogue information: Houston Grand Opera HGO 0001

The Verdi Requiem – 2026

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 20:04:05 +0000

The Lubbock Symphony Orchestra will perform the Verdi Requiem at the Buddy Holly Hall on Oct 15. Tickets may be purchased here. Below are the program notes I wrote for the concert.

Pianse ed amò per tutti (He wept and loved for everyone)
Gabriele D’Annunzio
On the occasion of Verdi’s death

D’Annunzio (a poet and playwright) understood that Verdi’s subject was ultimately not kings, courtesans, gypsies, jesters, or Moorish generals. It was mankind. Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem occupies a unique place in the musical literature. It is a setting of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead, yet it is also unmistakably the work of the greatest Italian operatic composer of the nineteenth century—perhaps the greatest of any time or place. Monumental in scale, intensely theatrical in expression, and extraordinarily demanding of its four soloists, chorus, and orchestra, the Requiem confronts death not with serene detachment but with terror, grief, supplication, and finally an uncertain hope for deliverance.

Verdi thought that 19th-century Italy had produced two cultural giants – Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) and Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873). The former literally invented 19th-century Italian opera. He produced a sound so new and inventive that Europe literally went Rossini-mad. Even Beethoven was jealous of the attention Rossini’s operas received. The latter produced the great Italian novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), which is renowned not only for its literary merit but also for helping establish contemporary Florentine as the principal model for standard modern Italian. This linguistic transformation began with Dante and ended six centuries later with Manzoni. That Manzoni was a Lombard but chose to write in Florentine sealed the language deal.

When Rossini died in 1868, Verdi, usually the most practical of great composers, got the hair-brained idea of honoring the first anniversary of his fellow composer’s death with a requiem mass written by 13 different Italian musicians—each to write a separate part of the whole mass. The piece was completed (Verdi wrote the Libera me) but not performed until more than a century later. After Manzoni’s death (May 22, 1873), Verdi proposed to the mayor of Milan that he, and only he, write a requiem mass to commemorate the first anniversary of the author’s death. Manzoni was born and died in Milan. The mayor readily assented. Manzoni’s funeral had been held in Milan Cathedral. The San Marco church was chosen for the Requiem’s premiere because of its size and acoustics. As the work’s premiere was held in a church, the audience could not applaud or show their appreciation for the piece. When the Requiem was performed at La Scala three days later it received a tumultuous reception.

At this point in his life Verdi considered himself retired. He was a rich man and was devoting most of his time to the management of the huge estate he had acquired outside of his hometown of Busseto. But he was a practical man; so he took his requiem on the road. He led performances in Paris, London, Vienna, Cologne, and later Milan, making even more money in the process.

The initial reaction to Verdi’s mass was mixed. Wagner hated it, but he hated anything by any living composer other than himself. Some criticized it for being too operatic. To know why the Verdi Requiem turned out the way it did, you must understand its composer’s approach to music. Verdi said that he had to write for the theater. Accordingly, almost all his compositions are operas. Furthermore, there are no gods or goddesses and almost no magic in them. They are filled with people subjected to the same emotional stresses as their audiences, and Verdi depicts them in music of striking aptness. That is why these characters remain so compelling.

Argerich/Munich PO/Shani - Farrenc, Beethoven, and Brahms, 5 September 2026

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:31:34 +0000

Royal Albert Hall

Louise Farrenc: Overture no.2 in E-flat major, op.24
Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.2 in B-flat major, op.19
Brahms: Symphony no.4 in E-minor, op.98

Martha Argerich (piano)

Munich Philharmonic Orchestra

Lahav Shani (conductor)

Images: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou

With the best will in the world, much of the audience in such a concert will be there for the soloist. That intends no disrespect to Lahav Shani or the Munich Philharmonic, but Martha Argerich is, well, Martha Argerich—and one takes whatever opportunity one can to hear her. It took me several false starts in the face of cancellation before finally I did, but I have never regretted it and certainly did not now. Whether rehearsal time had been targeted accordingly, I do not know, but Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto proved the unquestionable highlight of the evening, alongside deeply disappointing Brahms and a well-played nonentity of a concert overture by Louise Farrenc.

An interesting historical figure both as pianist and composer, Farrenc has her advocates, but this E-flat Overture proved little more than a series of introductions to introductions, wearing a little too obviously influences on its sleeve, from Gluck and Beethoven to Cherubini and Rossini. It began impressively, implying a true curtain-raiser, even without an opera to come. Its over-reliance on tonic-dominant harmony – yes, Beethoven can do this too, but how! – might not have mattered too much, but the lack of anything in the way of intrinsic musical interest did. Still, it was a welcome opportunity to hear this music for oneself, and the orchestra was on good firm, powerfully directed by Shani.

The Albert Hall offers an ideal acoustic for very little, if anything, certainly not for an early Beethoven concerto performed with chamber-orchestral forces (ten first violins down to four double basses). One had to listen in here, but rewards were many for having done so, from the fresh opening tutti onwards. Argerich’s entry had it all: chiaroscuro, beautifully pointed, and unerring line, Beethovenian goal-orientation never in doubt. In that, it offered a prospectus for the whole, the first movement in particular notable for counterpoint as crystal-clear as it was harmonically founded and directed. It was often a more inward account – these things are relative – than one might once have expected from her, but it was not without vehemence either, the world of the later composer summoned and very much with us in the cadenza. If the opening of the second movement exposed Shani’s inability, as yet, to work out how, in this acoustic, to present Beethoven simply, balances awry and much a little too fussy, then things settled soon enough on the return of the soloist. Thereafter, Shani proved a sure and sensitive accompanist. Perhaps the close was a little too drawn out, a little too loved, but if so, that is a fault in the right direction. Cultivated, directed orchestral playing and flashes of the tigress of old characterised the finale, its Scotch snaps worth the price of admission alone. ‘Le Jardin féerique’ form Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye made for a slightly surprising encore. It took a while to find its feet—or better, its balance, but Argerich’s glissandi will linger long in the memory of all who heard them.

Brahms’s Fourth Symphony brought out the best in neither orchestra nor conductor. If the first movement opened wistfully, its lack of textural clarity presaged one of several recurrent problems. That may have been in part an acoustical matter, but general listlessness and dissipation of tension were surely less so, likewise surprising thinness of string tone. At times, we heard more committed playing, but it was unclear where it had come from or why. Such issues were carried forward into a second movement whose mixture of petulance and strange balance – often, downright lack of balance – meant it never really had a chance. It suggested Brahms, here at the height of his powers, had simply given up. The third movement began more promisingly. It bounced along, a little too jolly but with greater precision—until tone thinned again and it became merely hard-driven, disintegrating thereafter. The finale likewise seemed to have a stronger sense of structure at its opening, but that was not to be maintained. A strange emptiness at its heart was engendered by scrappy playing and Shani’s apparent lack of musical understanding. What presumably was intended to sound hushed sounded merely uncertain. It was all a bit of a mess, and though it gathered a reasonable head of steam later on, that was too little, too late. Contrast with the courageous witness of Ilan Volkov at least year’s Proms could not have been starker.

Hormone replacement therapy and dementia risk among postmenopausal women

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 01:50:11 +0000

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th September 2026

Hormone replacement therapy and dementia risk among postmenopausal women: Identifying responsive subgroups in the UK Biobank is a study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. This large observational study found that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was associated with a modestly lower hazard of dementia, especially among women classified as having surgical menopause and those who began treatment between ages 46 and 56. It does not prove that HRT prevents dementia.

The following abbreviations are used in this discussion: hormone replacement therapy (HRT); Alzheimer’s disease (AD); standard deviation (SD); hazard ratio (HR). A P value indicates the probability of obtaining a result at least as extreme as the one observed if there were actually no association; values below 0.05 are conventionally considered statistically significant.

Investigators analyzed 183,450 postmenopausal women in the UK Biobank. Their mean age was 60.3 years, with a SD of 5.8 years. Of these women, 77,335 (42.2%) had used HRT for at least one year or were current users; 106,115 (57.8%) were nonusers or had used it for less than one year.

Mean follow-up was 13.26 years (SD, 1.96), totaling 2,433,320 person-years. There were 3,948 dementia diagnoses: 1,993 classified as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 1,955 as non-Alzheimer or unspecified dementia. The investigators used Cox proportional-hazards regression, adjusting for age, education, smoking, ethnicity, socioeconomic deprivation, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, cholesterol, diabetes, antihypertensive medication, and cholesterol-lowering medication.

Key findings: HRT and dementia risk

Group or outcome	Hazard ratio (HR)	95% confidence interval	P value	Interpretation
All-cause dementia	0.90	0.84–0.96	0.001	10% lower hazard
Natural menopause	0.94	0.87–1.01	0.091	No significant association
Surgical menopause¹	0.74	0.65–0.84	<0.001	26% lower hazard
Apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers	0.87	0.80–0.95	0.002	13% lower hazard²
Natural estrogen exposure of less than 37 years	0.84	0.77–0.93	Not reported	16% lower hazard³
Alzheimer’s disease	0.84	0.77–0.92	<0.001	16% lower hazard
Non-Alzheimer dementia	0.95	0.87–1.04	0.28	No significant association
HRT begun at ages 46–50	0.87	0.80–0.95	0.002	13% lower hazard
HRT begun at ages 51–56	0.77	0.70–0.86	<0.001	23% lower hazard
Surgical menopause; HRT begun at ages 51–56	0.57	0.44–0.74	<0.001	43% lower hazard

¹ The study’s “surgical menopause” category included hysterectomy without removal of the ovaries as well as bilateral oophorectomy, an important limitation. The interaction between menopause type and HRT was statistically significant (P = 0.001).

² Although the result among apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers was significant, the formal interaction between genotype and HRT was not. The study therefore did not establish that carriers benefit more than noncarriers.

³ The interaction between length of natural estrogen exposure and HRT was statistically significant (P = 0.018).

This study offers an intriguing possibility, not a clinical verdict. Its strongest finding-that hormone replacement therapy was associated with substantially less dementia after surgical menopause and when begun between ages 46 and 56-is biologically plausible and deserves rigorous testing. But an association derived from a prospective cohort using self-reported treatment and reproductive histories cannot establish prevention, particularly when the overall effect is modest, numerous subgroup comparisons were made, and the investigators could not distinguish estrogen alone from combined therapy or determine the effects of dose, route, and duration. Recall bias, exposure misclassification, incomplete ascertainment of dementia, and residual healthy-user bias remain possible.

Moreover, the findings must be considered alongside randomized evidence: combined oral estrogen and progestin increased dementia incidence among women aged 65 or older in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study, while trials involving younger women have generally shown little effect on cognitive outcomes. The present results therefore should not prompt the prescription of hormones solely to prevent dementia. Their real importance is that they identify the populations, timing, and treatment formulations that a properly designed randomized trial should examine.

BPO/Petrenko - Elgar and Tchaikovsky, 2 September 2026

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:53:38 +0000

Royal Albert Hall

Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’, op.36
Tchaikovsky: Symphony no.4 in F minor, op.36

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

Images: Berliner Philharmoniker/Lena Laine

Elgar and Tchaikovsky are not exactly strange bed-fellows, but nor are they frequently programmed together. Their harmonic and, in some cases, melodic worlds have more than some might suspect in common—and can be nudged further in that direction in performance, as I think probably happened here, from Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. Indeed, in a decidedly un-English performance, the theme of the Enigma Variations already danced a little closer to St Petersburg than I have previously heard. It only struck me afterwards that both works on the programme, that and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, were their respective composer’s op.36. It would seem a strange reason to programme the two works together, but it would also seem a strange coincidence. Maybe Petrenko first thought of them on that account and pursued the idea further to the extent of recognising the combination might work.

First, I should state that I stand warmly in favour of celebrating Elgar as a great European rather than ‘English’ composer. We need not rehearse here his musical antecedents, Richard Strauss’s praise, and the rest: they are by now common currency, though perhaps more in criticism and musicology than in performance. I cannot recall hearing Elgar from this Petrenko before, though I have done so from his namesake Vasily and been greatly impressed. Perhaps more to the point, I have heard Daniel Barenboim and another great Berlin orchestra, the Staatskapelle, more than once in this music, and raved. There was much to admire in this performance, not least the ever-outstanding playing of the Berlin Philharmonic, not to mention the still-too-rare opportunity to hear it play Elgar. There is a ‘but’ coming, as you may have sensed, yet I should like first to attend to the positive, often highly so, side of the ledger. From the outset, this was warmly expressive, cultivated playing which yet never curdled into narcissism. Petrenko clearly had his own ideas about the score and knew very well how to pursue them with his players. Every variation had sharply etched character, had seemingly been approached anew, developed within, and often offered contrast with its predecessor and successor. I shall not list them all, but a good-natured ‘R.P.A.’, in which we reheard Mendelssohn through Brahms, exquisite solo viola-playing in ‘Ysobel’, and a truly rollercoaster ‘Troyte’, propelled by wondrous timpani, more Berlioz than Brahms, were three that lay at the heart. A flighty ‘Dorabella’ had one hear the music newly, as did a ‘Nimrod’ that unfolded with the most natural, warm Romanticism one could imagine. There were some variations, however, that to my ears and sensibility felt driven too hard: perhaps most of all a ‘B.G.N.’ that came dangerously close to a mere showpiece. There was some of that to the finale too, though I greatly appreciated the way Petrenko had its opening somehow sound and feel as if it were the final movement of not only a set of symphonic variations but a symphony. It was ultimately, though, in that sense rather than its far from unwelcome heterodoxy, that I felt the performance added up to less than the sum of its parts. There is more to the relationship between these variations than individual character and contrast. A guiding thread founded on harmonic motion, such as we should unquestionably have heard from Barenboim, proved elusive. Moreover, comparison with Petrenko's superlative way with another Barenboim speciality, Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, op.31, might also suggest this to be something of a work-in-progress. I hope he will return to Elgar and develop his often interesting thoughts further.

For three of the four Tchaikovsky movements I felt that more keenly. (Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, this was also repertoire in which Barenboim excelled.) The opening of the first movement felt more idiomatic, more ‘inside’ the music, the trumpet fanfares already drawing back in dialectic relationship to a Fate that must be obeyed yet from which the subject in performance must surely also recoil: thereby grief-laden without so much of a hint of the mawkish. At some point Petrenko dropped his baton, later to be retrieved by concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley, but it mattered not a jot to the cohesion and persuasiveness of the performance. It chilled just as much, perhaps even more so, in its eerie, nether passages, again evoking the world of Berlioz (in whom I should be very keen to hear Petrenko). Struggle was felt, not merely observed, throughout, as was a sense that it might become too much, the falling nature of motifs itself becoming a motif. The second movement again ‘spoke’ as well as sang beautifully—and consequently. ‘Soul’ and form seemed as one in its unfolding. Pain, pride, all manner of sensitivities vied beneath the surface and in turn helped shape it. In its bitter, pizzicato introversion of a balletic world, the third movement edged us a little closer to Mahler, without forsaking the composer’s own palette or sentiment. There was always, moreover, ambiguity: a sense, sometimes achieved in the trio, that something more joyous might break through, albeit not without a welcome dose of Prokofiev-like sardonicism.

And so, when all that pent-up energy exploded at the outset of the finale, the performance seemed truly to have arrived. Alas, it was here that I felt its narrative fell apart somewhat. Yes, one can drive this music hard: it is marked ‘Allegro con fuoco’. But it is, or should be, with fire rather than like a machine. Technical accomplishment was beyond compare, but it seemed more hysterical, even Shostakovich-like, than deeply felt. It came and went, like a whirlwind, yet seemed not only out of proportion, but also a little out of meaning. At any rate, a London audience increasingly starved of high-profile orchestral visits during its normal concert season, responded with great enthusiasm.

Leonard Cohen in Yiddish

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:06:35 +0000

And now, as they say, for something completely different. Swedish band Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye are touring their show Leonard Cohen in Yiddish and it made its Toronto stop at Lula Lounge on Tuesday evening as part of the Ashkenaz Festival. It makes sense right? Cohen’s roots were in the Yiddish speaking community in Latvia and somehow Yiddish seems apt for his typical subject matter.

So what we got was a selection of Cohen songs translated into Yiddish and some original pieces inspired by Cohen. What made it for me; being neither hugely knowledgeable about Leonard Cohen or a Yiddish speaker, was the sheer verve and skill of the performance. Louisa Lyne is passionate, engages with the audience well and is a terrific mover and singer. She’s just great fun to watch.

The band; violin, cello, bass, guitar (electric and acoustic), accordion, keyboards and percussion were excellent. The arrangements were thoughtful (there was no drum kit – thank whichever God you fancy) and gave all the instrumentalists a chance to shine. I particularly noticed some very fine fiddling and accordion playing.

So I probably didn’t get as much out of it as the (as far as I could tell) mainly Yiddish speaking audience but I had fun. There was lots of positive energy and the sound was really good; which isn’t always the case at Lula Lounge! Definitely worth the trek out west!

Photo credit: Dan Rosenberg

The Rigoletto Quartet

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 01:07:32 +0000

Rigoletto was Verdi’s seventeenth opera. Julian Budden, author of the definitive three-volume study of Verdi’s operas, compares Rigoletto’s place in Verdi’s development with that of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. The opera marks the beginning of Verdi’s mature period, in which nearly every subsequent work would be a masterpiece. As Benjamin Britten remarked, “Verdi seemed to have discovered the secret of perfection.” My subject is the remarkable quartet that appears in Act III of the opera. The Italian text and an English translation appear below.

The quartet “Bella figlia dell’amore” is one of the supreme achievements of musical drama. It is not merely a beautiful ensemble inserted into the action; it is the action. Four people, occupying two physical spaces and four emotional worlds, sing simultaneously. Every voice retains its individuality, each vocal line remains dramatically distinct, and the story advances toward catastrophe through the very beauty of the music.

When Rigoletto received its first performance in Venice in 1851, operatic ensembles were certainly nothing new. Mozart had shown how several characters could express contrasting emotions at once, and Rossini and Donizetti had developed the ensemble into an elaborate formal structure. But Verdi’s quartet achieved an extraordinary concentration. Mozart’s ensembles often expand as new characters enter and a dramatic situation grows increasingly complex. The Rigoletto quartet begins with its four characters already fixed in a perfectly designed pattern: two inside the inn and two outside, two deceiving or playing and two watching, two emotionally untouched and two moving toward tragedy.

The scene is elegantly simple. The Duke, disguised as a young officer, is inside Sparafucile’s inn, attempting to seduce Maddalena. Outside, Rigoletto has brought his daughter Gilda to witness the Duke’s infidelity. Gilda still loves the man who had introduced himself to her as “Gualtier Maldè” and clings to the belief that his love was genuine. Rigoletto knows otherwise. He does not merely tell her that the Duke is faithless; he forces her to see and hear the truth. Though not stated directly, the implication is that the Duke has raped Gilda in the previous act. Yet she still loves him despite his obvious betrayal.

The Duke begins the quartet with one of Verdi’s most irresistible melodies:

Bella figlia dell’amore,
schiavo son dei vezzi tuoi.

“Beautiful daughter of love, I am the slave of your charms.”

The melody is smooth, expansive, and graceful. Its beauty is essential to the drama. The Duke is not a crude seducer. He is dangerous precisely because his sensuality takes the form of beauty. Verdi gives him music capable of making almost any woman—and the audience—want to believe him. The seduction works musically even while we know that every word is false.

Maddalena answers very differently. Her phrases are light, broken, and teasing. She laughs at the Duke, resists him just enough to encourage him, and understands the game perfectly. Unlike Gilda, she has no illusions about the man before her. She is attracted and amused, but not deceived. Her vocal line continually interrupts and plays around the Duke’s sustained melody. He pretends to be overwhelmed by love; she treats his protestations as practiced entertainment.

Outside the inn, Gilda’s music belongs to another world. She hears the same seductive voice that had enchanted her, but it is now directed toward another woman. Her phrases are fragmented by grief. She cannot compete with the Duke’s flowing melody because her emotional life has suddenly lost its continuity. His line proceeds serenely; hers breaks apart. Yet Verdi makes her sorrow exquisitely beautiful, thereby preventing the scene from becoming merely an exposure of infidelity. We experience not only what the Duke is doing but what his actions are doing to Gilda.

Rigoletto supplies the fourth and darkest element. His phrases are restrained, grave, and purposeful. He has expected exactly what is happening. While the Duke desires, Maddalena laughs and Gilda weeps, Rigoletto watches. He urges his daughter to observe the proof of betrayal and promises that vengeance will follow. His music has neither the Duke’s sensuality nor Gilda’s emotional abandon. It has the terrible steadiness of a man whose suspicions have been confirmed and whose next action is already taking shape.

The miracle is that Verdi never sacrifices the individuality of these lines when he combines them. We do not hear four singers merged into a generalized harmony. We continue to hear four people. The Duke’s melody remains dominant because, at that moment, his charm exerts power over everyone: Maddalena plays with it, Gilda is wounded by it, and Rigoletto condemns it. The other voices surround the Duke’s tune like different interpretations of the same event.

This is the quartet’s great dramatic innovation: music permits simultaneity. Spoken drama ordinarily requires characters to speak one after another. Opera can reveal several responses at the same instant. A famous anecdote recounts that Victor Hugo, whose play Le Roi s’amuse was the source of Rigoletto, envied Verdi’s ability to have four people speak at once while allowing the audience to distinguish each character’s feelings. Whether Hugo’s reported words have been polished in transmission, they identify the quartet’s essential accomplishment. Music does something here that spoken theater cannot easily duplicate.

The physical arrangement of the scene is equally important. The Duke and Maddalena are visible inside the inn; Gilda and Rigoletto remain outside, looking in. The stage is divided between participants and observers, ignorance and knowledge. The Duke does not know that he is being watched. Maddalena does not yet understand the tragic consequences of her flirtation. Gilda sees the destruction of her romantic dream. Rigoletto believes that the revelation will cure her love and justify his revenge.

But Rigoletto misunderstands his daughter. He assumes that proof of the Duke’s worthlessness will destroy her attachment. Instead, Gilda’s love survives her disillusionment. This is crucial to everything that follows. Having seen the Duke betray her, she will nevertheless sacrifice herself to save him. The quartet, therefore, does much more than confirm what the audience already knows. It creates the emotional conditions for Gilda’s final act.

Its beauty also intensifies the tragedy through irony. If Verdi had given the Duke coarse or obviously insincere music, Gilda’s attachment to him would seem foolish. Instead, Verdi lets us hear why she loved him. The same melody that exposes his falseness also demonstrates his fascination. Moral worth and musical beauty are deliberately separated. The Duke is a monster, yet he repeatedly receives some of the opera’s most attractive music. His beauty is part of his power and therefore part of the danger he represents.

The quartet does not advance the story primarily through external action. During it, no one is killed, captured, or physically transformed. It advances the drama by altering knowledge and intention. Gilda learns the truth. Rigoletto’s already-declared desire for revenge hardens into the determination to complete the murder he has begun arranging. The audience understands that Gilda’s love has become detached from hope and may therefore become sacrificial. By the quartet’s conclusion, all the forces required for the catastrophe are in place.

This union of dramatic function and musical beauty explains the quartet’s historical importance. Verdi demonstrated that an operatic “number” need not interrupt a drama in order to provide lyrical pleasure. The lyricism can itself perform the dramatic work. The music does not decorate the characters’ emotions after the fact; it reveals those emotions, distinguishes them, and places them in conflict.

The quartet is unique not because no earlier composer had written a great ensemble, but because so few ensembles achieve such absolute economy. Four voices, one dominant melody, two locations, and a few minutes of music contain seduction, amusement, heartbreak, paternal anger, dramatic irony, and the preparation for murder and self-sacrifice. Nothing is superfluous.

“Bella figlia dell’amore” is beautiful enough to survive as a concert piece, but in the theater its beauty becomes something more disturbing. We are seduced by the Duke’s melody even as we condemn him. We are amused by Maddalena, grieve with Gilda, and feel the gathering darkness in Rigoletto. Verdi makes us experience four truths at once – and from their harmonious combination creates the catastrophe that will kill Gilda and leave Rigoletto desolate.

Other ensembles — the quintet in Die Meistersinger for sheer beauty and the sextet in Lucia di Lammermoor for theatrical impact—may rival it in particular respects. But none surpasses it in combining four sharply contrasting emotional perspectives within a single musical whole. It is a creative marvel.

DUCA
Bella figlia dell’amore,
Schiavo son dei vezzi tuoi;
Con un detto sol tu puoi
Le mie pene consolar.
Vieni e senti del mio core
Il frequente palpitar.

MADDALENA
Ah! ah! rido ben di core,
Che tai baie costan poco
Quanto valga il vostro gioco,
Mel credete, so apprezzar.
Son avvezza, bel signore,
Ad un simile scherzar.

GILDA
Ah, così parlar d’amore
A me pur l’infame ho udito!
Infelice cor tradito,
Per angoscia non scoppiar.

RIGOLETTO
Taci, il piangere non vale…
Ch’ei mentiva sei sicura.
Taci, e mia sarà la cura
La vendetta d’affrettar.
Sì, pronta fia, sarà fatale,
Io saprollo fulminar.

THE DUKE
Beautiful daughter of love,
I am the slave of your charms.
With a single word you can
console me in my suffering.
Come and feel how frequently
my heart is beating.

MADDALENA
Ha! Ha! I laugh heartily,
for such nonsense costs you little.
Believe me, I know very well
what your game is worth.
I am accustomed, handsome sir,
to flirtation of this kind.

GILDA|
Ah, I too have heard the scoundrel
speak of love in just this way!
My unhappy, betrayed heart,
do not burst from anguish.

RIGOLETTO
Be silent; weeping is of no use.
Now you are certain that he lied.
Be silent, and leave it to me
to hasten our revenge.
It will soon be accomplished—it will be fatal.
I shall know how to strike him down.

Rusalka; gritty and glam

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 17:20:15 +0000

Dvořák’s Rusalka seems to be a favourite for directors to give the “high concept” treatment. That’s certainly the case with Philipp Stölzl and Philipp M. Krenn’s production for Dutch National Opera recorded in Amsterdam in 2023.

We open with the closing scene of a Hollywood extravaganza; The Prince and the Mermaid. Sailors, dancing girls aerialists doing their thing until the protagonists disappear into a giant clam shell… all in glorious Technicolor. It’s a massive contrast with the cinema exterior; a grimy street in Brooklyn. The water nymphs are prostitutes. Vodnik is their pimp. There are gangsters and plenty of violence. Rusalka is a rather dowdy employee of the cinema with a heroin habit; viscerally demonstrated during “The Song to the Moon”. Rusalka longs for the glamour of Hollywood and for the handsome man who plays the lead in the movie.

Ježíbaba, the proprietor of the next door hairdressing and nail salon facilitates the transformation of Rusalka into something suitably glamorous whereupon the scene moves to Hollywood where Rusalka takes up with her dream prince. The huntsman is the film director, the kitchen boy a make-up artist and the gamekeeper is (maybe) Prince’s agent. This plays out remarkably straightforwardly on a film set with paparazzi and so on.

Enter the Foreign Princess. They are shooting the sequel to the earlier movie. Both the Prince and the Princess are doing coke and there is an energetic sailor ballet. At this point we have a sort of split screen with the Brooklynites following Rusalka’s adventures in the newspaper. This all builds up to a knife fight between the Foreign Princess and Rusalka in which both get cut up.

And so we are back in Brooklyn where the stars of “The mermaid Returns” are attending the premiere with their Oscars. The Prince tries to make up with Rusalka but, of course, dies. We see more excepts of The Mermaid Returns while Rusalka shoots up again in the street. It shouldn’t work but actually it does pretty well. Hollywood is unrealistic enough to carry the fairy tale elements. Only the ending is a bit weak but that’s not exactly the opera’s strongest point anyway!

Musically it’s very strong. The orchestra here is the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Joana Mallwitz, and they sound sumptuous. The singing is very good. Johanni van Oostrum is a sympathetic Rusalka and both she and Annette Dasch, singing the Foreign princess, manage to look and sound suitably glamorous. Pavel Černoch has film star looks and a really lovely and quite powerful tenor. He’s pretty much ideal as the Prince. Raehann Bryce-Davis’ rich, powerful mezzo and somewhat larger than life stage presence are ideal for this Ježíbaba; who is portrayed as at least as imposing as anyone else in the drama. Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev is surprisingly lyrical and sympathetic as Vodnik. The chorus also does a great job as does a huge crowd of dancers, aerialists and other extras.

The sound (LPCM stereo and DTS-MA 5.1) and the picture are excellent on Blu-ray. Michael Beyer’s video direction is on point and shows off the cleverness of the set design and its seamless transitions. The voice orchestra balance is more natural than usual. The voices aren’t balanced implausibly far forward! The booklet is basic with a track listing and a generic synopsis. Subtitle options are English, German, Dutch, Korean and Japanese.

All in all this production works better than one might expect and certainly better than some of the competing recordings of Rusalka. Add to that the performances are strong across the board and there’s a lot to like. There several good Rusalka recordings and I did a round up of them here (last paragraph). The choice is largely a matter of taste as to production style.

Catalogue information: Naxos Blu-ray NBD0193V. Release date is 11th September 2026.

Cannabis Use Disorder in American Adults

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:03:32 +0000

In December 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14370, declaring it federal policy to increase medical marijuana and cannabidiol (CBD) research and directing the Attorney General to expedite the movement of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. The order stated that marijuana has credible scientific support for pain, medically related anorexia, and nausea and vomiting induced by chemotherapy.

Effective April 28, 2026, the Justice Department placed state-licensed medical marijuana and FDA-approved plant-derived marijuana products in Schedule III. It created an expedited DEA-registration pathway for state-licensed growers, distributors, and dispensaries. Qualifying medical-marijuana businesses are relieved of the punitive federal tax provision that formerly prevented Schedule I and II cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary expenses. A broader proceeding to move all marijuana essentially to Schedule III was held from June 29 through July 15; a final decision on that broader proposal is still pending. Thus, although the administration describes its objective principally as “increasing research,” its actions will almost certainly facilitate and expand medical use.

The FDA has not approved the cannabis plant itself for treating any disease. It has approved purified CBD for certain severe epilepsies and synthetic cannabinoid drugs for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS-related anorexia. Evidence for pain and multiple sclerosis symptoms suggests only modest benefits. The evidence does not justify treating “medical cannabis” as a broadly effective therapeutic class. Most favorable trials studied standardized oral compounds or precisely formulated sprays, not the highly variable flower, concentrates, vapes, and edibles sold by dispensaries. THC concentration, CBD-to-THC ratio, contaminants, dose and bioavailability may differ greatly.

Cannabis use disorder (CUD) is a medical diagnosis describing a problematic pattern of cannabis use that causes clinically significant impairment or distress. Under DSM-5 criteria, a person must experience at least two of these symptoms within 12 months:

Using more cannabis, or for longer, than intended
Wanting or repeatedly trying unsuccessfully to reduce or stop
Spending considerable time obtaining, using, or recovering from cannabis
Craving cannabis
Failing to meet obligations at work, school, or home
Continuing despite relationship or social problems
Giving up important activities
Using in hazardous situations, such as while driving
Continuing despite knowing it worsens a physical or psychological problem
Developing tolerance
Experiencing withdrawal

Severity is classified as:
Mild: 2–3 symptoms
Moderate: 4–5
Severe: 6 or more

Frequent, legal, or medically authorized cannabis use does not by itself constitute CUD; the essential features are loss of control, adverse consequences, impairment, or distress. Severe CUD is commonly described as cannabis addiction, though cannabis use does not meet the strict pharmacological definition of addiction, as it is not associated with withdrawal symptoms as are opioid or alcohol withdrawal. I am not using the DSM V definition of addiction, as I think it incoherent.

In this discussion, addiction denotes a chronic pattern of drug use characterized by all four of the following: tolerance, habituation, dependence, and a recognizable withdrawal syndrome upon cessation. This definition is narrower than DSM-5 cannabis use disorder; consequently, the prevalence of CUD reported in the study cannot be interpreted as the prevalence of cannabis addiction.

A recent study published in JAMA Psychiatry: Trends in the Prevalence and Severity of Alcohol and Cannabis Use Disorders Among US Adults analyzed responses from 186,823 adults participating in the nationally representative National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2021 through 2024. The survey represents the civilian, noninstitutionalized adult population. It does not include prisoners, active-duty military personnel, other institutional residents, or people experiencing homelessness who are not staying in shelters. Cannabis use disorder was determined from respondents’ answers to questions corresponding to DSM-5 criteria. The authors combined moderate and severe CUD into a single category, defined as four or more symptoms. This was not a longitudinal study following the same people. It was a series of annual cross-sectional surveys used to measure population-level changes.

Principal national findings

Measure	2021	2024
Men reporting cannabis use	22.2%	25.7%
Women reporting cannabis use	17.7%	21.2%
Men with CUD	7.3%	9.3%
Women with CUD	4.5%	5.6%
Men with moderate-to-severe CUD	3.1%	4.1%
Women with moderate-to-severe CUD	1.7%	2.5%

These percentage changes corresponded to an estimated increase in the number of adults with CUD from 15.3 million in 2021 to 19.4 million in 2024, about 4 million additional people over three years. The increases in overall CUD and moderate-to-severe CUD were statistically significant. In 2024, 36.2% of male cannabis users met criteria for CUD, while 26.6% of female cannabis users met criteria for CUD. The absolute prevalence remained highest among younger adults, but some of the largest increases occurred in middle and later life.

The paper was deliberately constructed as a comparison between cannabis and alcohol disorders. The estimated number of adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD) declined from 28.8 million to 27.1 million. AUD prevalence in men was statistically stable. AUD in women declined from 9.7% to 8.2%. Moderate-to-severe AUD generally remained stable or declined.

The evidence convincingly shows a recent increase in self-reported CUD and its severity. It does not, however, establish that legalization or increased THC potency caused the increase. The study did not compare legalization policies among states, measure the potency of products used by individual respondents, or follow individuals over time.

The most rational approach to cannabis use is not to regard it as harmless. It should be treated as a psychoactive drug whose risks rise with THC concentration, dose, frequency, and susceptibility. The long-term use of a mind-altering drug is likely to be undesirable. Prolonged recreational use may have serious adverse effects.

Complete avoidance is generally most rational for adolescents, pregnant or breastfeeding women, people with a personal or strong family history of psychosis, and those who have had substance-use disorders. Considerable caution is also warranted for those with cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, poor balance, or multiple medications. Medical use might be reasonable for a specific refractory symptom, but only at a very-low-dose, closely monitored trial after reviewing drug interactions, blood-pressure effects, balance, cognition, and driving. Adults over 55 may be more sensitive to cannabis because of age-related physiological changes, medical comorbidities and polypharmacy, and they face greater risks from drug interactions, cognitive effects, orthostatic hypotension and falls.

The federal government is moving ahead of the evidence concerning both the beneficial and adverse effects of prolonged cannabis use. Expanding research is entirely reasonable; conferring Schedule III status and federal accommodation to state dispensary systems is a broad policy choice. It may eventually produce better evidence, but it should not itself be mistaken for evidence of clinical effectiveness.

Rossini - Le siège de Corinthe at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:56:27 +0000

Auditorium Scavolini, Pesaro, Friday June 21 2026

Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Production: Davide Livermore. Sets: Eleonora Peronetti, Paolo Gep Cucco, Davide Livermore. Video: D-Wok. Costumes: Gianluca Falaschi. Choreography: Erika Rombaldoni. Lighting: Nicolas Bovey. Mahomet II: Adrian Sâmpetrean. Cléomène: Matteo Roma. Pamyra: Vasilisa Berzhanskaya. Néoclès: Maxim Mironov. Hiéros: Simón Orfila. Adraste: Tianxuefei Sun. Omar: Giuseppe De Luca. Ismène: Anna-Doris Capitelli. Chorus of the Ventidio Basso theatre. Bologna Municipal Theatre Orchestra.

Photos: Amati Bacciardi

While I’ve no intention of teaching granny to suck eggs, I think any article about Le siège de Corinthe is bound to include at least something about the history - or vicissitudes, you might say - of the work. Those of you who already know all about Corinthian egg-sucking can just skip to the performance itself.

So (1)… Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe premiered in Paris in October 1826 and to celebrate, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro has just staged a new production, by Davide Livermore. For his first French opera, Rossini chose to draw on Maometto II, composed for Naples in 1820: it wasn’t known in Paris, and Rossini himself was particularly fond of what Philip Gossett goes so far as to call a ‘perfect’ neoclassical opera, so it made sense to recycle some of the material.

However, catering to Paris opera conventions meant not just translating the libretto into French, but rewriting the score: fleshing out the orchestra, simplifying the vocal style and adapting it to French declamation, adding choruses and ballets, changing voice types (the female alto Calbo becoming, for example, the tenor Néoclès) and reassigning arias or portions of arias in consequence…

In addition, in April 1826, i.e. just six months before the premiere of Le siège, the final siege of Missolonghi had ended in victory for the Turks and catastrophe for the Greeks. Inhabitants not massacred or choosing suicide by gunpowder over Ottoman defeat were carried off into slavery, and the city was burnt to ashes. European public opinion was already gripped by the unrest in Greece. Byron’s own The Siege of Corinth (inspired by the 1715 Ottoman massacre of the Venetian garrison in Corinth: no wonder we get confused) had been published in 1816. The news of his death in Missolonghi, in 1824, had caused a great stir, further stoking philhellenic sentiment.

The story of Turks v. Venetians in Maometto II thus became one of Turks v. Greeks in Le siège. Up to the last minute, the third and final act was remodelled as news from the war of independence continued to reach Paris. As a result, though the action is supposedly based on Mehmet II’s historic siege of Corinth in 1458, Le siège de Corinthe is deemed to be one of the most, perhaps the most topical of all operas.

There is no known autograph version of Le siège. The first orchestral score was printed by Eugène-Théodore Troupenas in Paris (he would also publish the first editions of Moïse, Le comte Ory and Guillaume Tell), and this still provided the basis for performances in Pesaro in 2000, to Philip Gossett's dismay. Demonstrating how quickly, in Rossini’s day, scores got hacked up and rearranged, Troupenas’s first edition is, according to Gossett, ‘a mess, with errors and inconsistencies, major confusions about the order and content of pieces, and dramaturgical absurdities.’ At the end, ‘the male Greek defenders of Corinth are all dead, yet they manage to sing from offstage “O patrie,” in a conclusion that merges incoherently several versions of the final measures.’ The 2000 staging didn’t help, but for more about that, read Gossett.

What he doesn’t mention, and probably didn’t know since Damien Colas’s critical edition of Le siège would only be heard in Pesaro in 2017, was that, as well as reconstructing the original architecture of the score, it would also restore nearly 500 bars that had already gone AWOL by the time Troupenas printed his first edition. Colas did all this by painstakingly piecing the score together line by line (‘from piccolo to double-bass, bar by bar’) from the individual orchestra and vocal parts.

As early as 1827, Italian translations of the opera began to circulate as L’assedio di Corinto, of a kind, typical of their times, that Colas calls ‘adaptations sauvages’ (haphazard adaptations) with numerous ‘bidouillages’ (tinkerings), ‘alterations of varying degrees - the removal of certain numbers and the insertion of others, not necessarily by the composer but by the often anonymous individuals in charge of each production: conductor, choirmaster, capo banda… not to mention the singers and their whims.’

Which brings us to the famous but oft-decried (by Gossett, for one, bitterly) diva-showpiece version of L’assedio featuring Beverly Sills under Thomas Schippers. This, says Colas, ‘bears little resemblance to the authentic siège de Corinthe’, with ‘here, excerpts from Maometto II, there passages from Le siège translated into Italian, and a breathtaking rondo aria, “Parmi vederlo, ahi misero” composed in 1828 for Giulia Grisi, slotted in between Pamira’s prayer and the tragic finale.’ The decision to switch Néoclès’ tenor part back to a breeches role for alto or mezzo, to allow Marilyn Horne and Shirley Verrett to dazzle audiences alongside Sills, resulted in numerous inconsistencies, even absurdities, in the patchwork score.

Colas nevertheless concludes, philosophically, that this Schippers/Mickelson mishmash remains important. Thanks to ‘the splendour of the performance,’ it brought the work to the attention of a wide audience, contributing to the revival of Rossini’s opera seria output. But also, ‘it bears witness to that quaint business of cobbling together 19th-century scores, which, thankfully, is now on the wane.’ For bel canto fans, he writes, ‘it is a cult recording, in which Beverly Sills, with her legendary trill, showcases the very best of her artistry.’

The full plot of Le siège de Corinthe can of course be found online. In brief, Cléomène, the governor of Corinth, wants his daughter, Pamyra, to marry a Greek officer, Néoclès. She, of course, is already in love with someone else, who to her surprise, not ours, turns out to be Mahomet II. When, after much soul searching, she eventually turns him down, the latter finally attacks. As the Greek menfolk march off to defeat and enslavement or worse, she joins the women in choosing death over dishonour, and Corinth goes up in flames.

*****

Director, designer, singer, dancer, actor, scriptwriter and teacher Davide Livermore is a star of the Italian stage, director of Genoa’s Teatro Nazionale, and a Pesaro regular, but this was the first time I had seen a production by him. If this article is late, it’s partly because, after Pesaro, I was completing my journey to Naxos, where I’m writing now, but very much because I was at a loss for words to describe what I saw.

Now I know I sometimes get told off for quoting from other people’s accounts, but while I muster my thoughts, I can’t resist pasting here a lively snippet from a review by Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Jewish Chronicle, who writes that Livermore’s staging is… ‘… a clumsy, oafish massacre of Rossini’s work carried out by a man with the sensitivity of a blind porcupine attempting to make love to a Fabergé egg, while congratulating himself on his tenderness.’

After much thought, I decided I’d start my own account by simply recycling what I wrote about Johannesburg Erath’s take on Ermione, also in Pesaro, in 2024. In a nutshell, ‘The production was exasperatingly cliché-ridden and over-busy.’ Livermore’s Le siège actually opens with a cliché: ‘Corinthe’ daubed in red at the end of a streak of blood across the black steel safety curtain. From that point on, it’s a perpetual guessing-game as to the director’s intentions; at no point does he seem interested in engaging with the tragedy of Corinth (or the implied one of Missolonghi) as such.

The curtain rises on giant crates of ancient artefacts wheeled about by scurrying dancers in Grecian tunics. So at first it looks like this might be a ‘museum’ production, or a ‘spoliation by invaders’ one, both familiar from various stagings of Giulio Cesare and other works over the years. Statues, including the Vénus de Milo, are unpacked, a tall chunk of ruin with twin Ionic columns slides in, and one big crate opens to reveal a glowing screen at its rear. This crate, a small stage-within-a-stage with its video backdrop, will be a permanent feature throughout the evening. The videos, by a multimedia design firm called D-Wok, look as if they’d asked AI to conjure up a Kitschy ideal vision of the ancient world - one reminiscent of postcards and trinkets peddled to tourists around the foot of the Athens Acropolis - by combining Lawrence Alma-Tadema with Thomas Kinkade. These images will glitch up in a slick of oily black to show temples, a throne room, sea views, etc, eventually the Parthenon atop a mountain of garbage, and Corinth in flames.

Le siège might be set in various relevant times and places: the time of Mehmet the Conqueror; the time the work premiered, and thus that of the Greek war of independence; in any modern or present-day context of conquest and occupation… Here, however, the Greeks are costumed (by Gianluca Falaschi) as cartoonish ancient Greeks with flowers in their hair, while the Ottomans seem, at first, to be inter-war gentleman archeologists, in beige linen three-piece suits, black ties and fedoras. Only their behaviour is anything but gentlemanly: these are swaggering, uncouth oafs, forever lighting up cigarettes (a directorial tic I’d already complained of after Ermione), laughing at the humiliation of the hapless Greeks and taking Instagram shots and selfies with their smartphones - yes, the inevitable smartphones, notwithstanding their ‘Howard Carter’ looks. Mahomet, in a white suit, relieves himself on arrival against a column, before lighting up and posing with his grinning gang for one of many selfies. He signals his virility by climbing up the scaffolding.

As the stage fills with variegated bags of rubbish, plastic waste bobs on the Aegean in the garish, gilt-framed videos behind, and Pamyra sings a lament seated on an upturned supermarket trolley, it emerges that the production is somehow a comment on the impact of uncouth modernity on ancient art and cultures, or, more simply, one on the disastrous effects of overtourism. It’s as if it has a life of its own, and the near-irrelevant opera is played out within it quite incidentally. As I wrote above, in no way does it address the classic tragic dilemma of affections and loyalties in times of war, invasion and occupation: with cardboard cut-out Greeks and an army of chain smoking louts in beige linen wielding toy swords and led by a spiv, how could it? It managed at once to trivialise ancient Greece, the Ottomans, the Muslim occupation and war of independence, Rossini’s heartfelt opera seria and by implication, in the special context of Le siège, the dreadful fate of Missolonghi.

And naturally, the reduction of the characters to silly caricatures undermines the efforts of the singers. It’s impossible to tell if their hammy, silent-film acting (the production also involves many ‘freeze-frame’ moments, tableaux vivants in which soloists and chorus strike corny heroic poses) is a result of their being left to their own devices by a director too busy orchestrating his technically-perfect conception, or of their being directed to do it.

Before I move on to the singing, though it isn’t the usual protocol, I’ll begin with the orchestra under Carlo Rizzi, as their contribution naturally had an impact on it. Rizzi is, I guess, a safe pair of hands, and conducted the score with vigour and impulse. But delicacy isn’t his thing. I’m particularly interested in the subtleties of Rossini’s orchestra, its skilfully-crafted, and in my view often neglected, inner workings. Rizzi’s relatively martial approach, never, it felt, dropping below forte, with a largish Bologna orchestra in the pit including the substantial lower brass added for Paris, produced what I’m sorry to admit I called a ‘galumphing’ effect when texting my first impressions to a friend. This made things harder for the singers.

Pamyra is, in the most considerate of circumstances, a punishing role, and in this production, she even has to mingle with the dancers and display conflicting emotions during the cute act-two ballets Rossini composed for the Opéra, here staged as a dream, or perhaps her inner turmoil. Vasilisa Berzhanskaya has an impressive voice, best, in its current state, in long, soft passages, where she can float ethereal pianissimi, in dramatic declamation, and soaring thrillingly over a full orchestra and chorus in rousing finales. She must surely be a great Médée, supposing she has the dramatic temperament for it (in this production, it is impossible to tell if her relative impassivity and corny gesturing are her own, or imposed deliberately by the director as part of his scheme). Her ‘nightingale’ days, supposing she had them, are, however, probably now, or will soon be, behind her - at any rate with Rizzi conducting the Bologna band. Her rapid runs, slightly soapy, disappeared under the decibels.

The two ‘Nourrit’ tenors (Louis Nourrit was the first Cléomène, while his son Adolphe sang Néoclès), Matteo Roma and Maxim Mironov, were nicely contrasted. Funnily, young Roma is practically at the start of his career, whereas Mironov is someone I first saw as Marzio in Mozart’s Mitridate 20 years ago (around the time all Facebook was gawping at his bare-chested Lindoro), yet here the younger singer, heavily made-up, grey-haired and whiskered, got to play the older part. Roma’s singing was as assertive as the staging allowed a paper cut-out to be, and interestingly complex in timbre. Perhaps end-of-series fatigue (I was there on the last night) was responsible for one or two strangled top notes; but as the orchestra was loud, they were barely noticeable. Perhaps the same fatigue explains the lack of éclat in Mironov’s top register too. Otherwise, his was probably the most classic Rossini singing of the evening, elegant if perhaps too light for a role composed for Adolphe Nourrit. Curiously and unfortunately, in his Grecian pleats and gold boots, he recalled Michael Palin in The Life of Brian (‘I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome called Biggus Dickus'). This limited his dramatic impact.

Bass Adrian Sâmpetrean (Mahomet) was announced sick but willing to soldier on. As is often the case, this didn’t show, at least to anyone not familiar with him, but it may have reduced his impact and the consistency of his singing at least to some extent. I’ve read he's a very interesting singer. Here he seemed a bit uneven and blustery, but in the circumstances it’s probably better not to try to judge. I’ll be glad to find his name in a future cast list and form a sounder opinion.

Experienced Simón Orfila was a strikingly resounding Hiéros, the rest of the supporting cast was adequate, or, in the case of Anna-Doris Capitelli, more than adequate, and the chorus was on form.

In a more respectful, less self-regarding production, rather than one that felt as if a limitless budget had been handed to a precocious student director too young to realise his astounding insights are tiresomely déja vu, and with subtler playing, this might have been a better evening of Rossini. But that sports-arena auditorium is spartan, the seats are painful, summer parking in Pesaro is a nightmare, and you can’t be sure your money will have been well spent. The Festival isn’t what it used to be - as one friend familiar with it joked, they should let people park in the empty seats - and I honestly wonder if I’ll bother to go back again.

(1) The key sources for this introduction were Philip Gossett’s Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, plus an interview he gave about Maometto II, now on YouTube; musicologist Damien Colas’ De Maometto II (1820) au Siège de Corinthe (1826) : comment une pièce turque est devenue une tragédie grecque, in Orages magazine; six interviews with Colas (who made the critical edition of Le siège now used in Pesaro and elsewhere) published, to mark the work’s bicentenary, on the Première Loge website; and, inevitably, Wikipedia.

Images: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou

For the first of its two Proms in its first ever visit to the series, the MET Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin offered an all-Strauss programme, perhaps not coincidentally on considerably firmer ground in the operatic first half than the symphonic second. The mysterious Rosenkavalier Suite – still no one knows who wrote it, though Artur Rodziński remains a favoured candidate – began with a Prelude full of contrasts yet clear of narrative. That the Metropolitan Opera’s music director and its orchestra have chemistry and mutual understanding was clear from the outset, Nézet-Séguin ‘playing’ the ensemble as his own. There was, moreover, a fine, Straussian sound without undue (however tempting) clotting of the cream. It made me long to hear the rest of the opera. That could not quite be arranged, but there followed a welcome whistle-stop-tour. If the Presentation of the Rose was milked slightly, who can blame them? There are worse things than time standing a little on the still side, as the Marschallin would doubtless counsel us. For me, it worked as if a dream of the opera house itself, cruelly interrupted by Ochs’s ‘hallucinations’. What is ‘real’ here anyway? If that brief intervention sounded a bit odd in itself, out of context, it nicely divided the second act from the first hearing of the Baron’s own waltz. The waltzes in general had idiom, charm, and a keen sense of delight: excellent solo playing from all concerned. And if part of me wishes the suite would close in a different way from that chosen by its compile, whoever he may have been, the other part smiled at it for what it is and for how it was played.

Elza van den Heever joined the band for the final scene from Salome in a performance of visceral, all-encompassing commitment, perhaps the finest I have heard from her. The orchestra’s switch at the opening to full-on expressionism displayed a versatility and judgement that ran through the scene: no sugar-coating from anyone concerned. The soloist’s diction, moreover, was second to none, all the more important here as a way to bring the drama into being without scenery or context within the greater work. Sometimes I felt Nézet-Séguin might have moved things on more quickly, but I could understand why not. And when death came – ‘der Geheimnis des Todes’ – it was truly horrible, as if van den Heever’s voice had turned first to stone, then to blood of the deepest crimson. She gloried thereafter in what she had done, with the memory and legacy of that kiss, in a welcome dose of old-fashioned glamour.

Ein Heldenleben fared less well, marred by strange tempi choices that seemed counter-intuitive and failed, at least to my ears, to justify themselves. The opening intrigued, given with what seemed, after Salome but also on its own terms, a model of Classical restraint. There were oddities of balance, though, which haunted the rest of the piece, doubtless less familiar to the orchestra (though an old favourite of the conductor). Introversion ensued; it is a point of view, I suppose, but an odd one when applied either to the hero’s adversaries or his companion. A welcome flick of the switch came to something warmer, more blooming, but if detail was always present, greater structural awareness was less discernible. Much of the battlefield sounded magnificent, offstage and onstage trumpets included, but the works of peace felt too drawn out, often merely listless. Ultimately, the reading did not cohere for me, though much of the audience clearly felt otherwise. A rich-toned ‘Zueignung’ came as encore, van den Heever and Nézet-Séguin recovering with grace and humour from the former’s initial memory lapse.

Salzburg Festival (6) – Kopatchinskaja and friends: Bartók, Kurtág, and Mozart, 25 August 2026

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:57:43 +0000

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Bartók: Rhapsody no.2 for violin and piano, Sz 89
Kurtág: Selection from Játekók and Jelek, játekók és üzenetek; Kafka-Fragmente, op.24: ‘Ruhelos’
Bartók: 44 Duos for two violins, Sz 98: ‘Szól a duda’; Contrasts for violin, clarinet, and piano, Sz 111
Mozart: Clarinet Quintet, KV 581

Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Jonian Ilias Kadesha (violins)

Lawrence Power (viola)

Sol Gabetta (cello)

Reto Bieri (clarinet)

Olga Pashchenko (piano)

Images: © SF/Marco Borrelli

The second of my ‘Hommage à Kurtág’ concerts proved in more than one sense a concert of two unequal halves, a scintillating selection from Bartók and Kurtág followed by a bizarre, if mercifully shorter, mauling of Mozart that would have been better left unimagined, let alone performed. In its violin and piano version, Bartók’s Second Rhapsody imparted a curious, welcome sense in its first movement of first being heard from a slight distance, quickly coming into focus, as if the players had drawn physically nearer to us. (They had not moved at all, at least in position.) Pianist Olga Pashchenko and violinist-cum-animating-presence Patricia Kopatchinskaja proved animated guides, the former’s shading of post-Romantic tone as absorbing as the ghostly echoes of the latter. Dancing, revelry, and other wildness characterised a whirlwind second movement of considerable ferocity.

The duo joined by violinist Jonian Ilias Kadesha, violist Lawrence Power, and cellist Sol Gabetta, we heard a selection of piano pieces from Kurtág’s Jatekók and string solo and trio pieces from another of the composer’s collections, Jelek, játekók és üzenetek (‘Signs, games, and messages’). ‘Hommage à Kurtag Marta’ functioned almost as if a Bach prelude from the 48, inviting and of course in this case remembering, followed by a haunting ‘ … féerie d’automne’ from Kadesha. ‘Ligatura Y’ for string trio suggested music not only for but by strings, sound and its organisation seemingly arising from the instruments themselves, however strong the illusion—and strong it was indeed. Power’s solo viola ‘In Nomine – all’ongherese’ was eloquent, rich, thoroughly absorbing, from which Pashchenko’s return in ‘… lehullot levelek’ stemmed with unforced inevitability, kinship within Kurtág’s œuvre as keenly perceived as that with his composer colleagues. ‘Népdalféle’ (Kadesha) and ‘Fanfárok’ (Paschchenko) led to an intense ‘Jelek VI’ for string trio (Kopatchnskaja, Power, Gabetta), its rests as musical and overwhelming as its notes, Webern’s ghost still an honoured guest at the feast. Kadesha’s ‘Hommage à J.S.B.’ suggested Bach writing in the style of Kurtág rather than vice versa, a second, piano piece of the same name over in a flash. Gabetta’s solo ‘Az hit …’ (actually a transcription from a soprano original) was as richly eloquent as Power’s viola solo, kinship again fruitfully acknowledged.

The Prelude and Waltz from the first book of Játekók and a dancing string tio ‘Hommage à Ránki György’, fresh from the tavern led us to a changing of the guard in Kopatchinskaja’s party piece ‘Ruhelos’ and a Bartók duo reimagined so as to involve all players, Bieri included, in a captivating piece of bagpiped music theatre. Contrasts, from Bieri, Kopatchinskaja, and Pashchenko, seemed to create a world before our ears and express its essence similarly before us. If there were inevitable echoes of other worlds from rural Hungary to nightclub blues, especially in the first movement, this could only ever have been Bartók. The initial, rapt stillness that yet moved of the central movement ran deep in a detailed performance whose impassioned outburst both surprised and yet confirmed. Organised delirium, to borrow from the Boulezian future, characterised an infectious third movement, chamber-music give-and-take ever new and rooted.

If only that had carried through into the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. To be fair, chemistry in the expanded ensemble was equally palpable. What a pity, then, that it was so misapplied, Kopatchinskaja and Bieri apparently leading the show. The first movement begin oddly sotto voce, as if founded on a need to make Mozart sound ‘like’ Kurtág on the surface, rather than explore what kinship might lie within. I suspect that was the ‘idea’, but in practice, the complete lack of line throughout the entire piece would have made equal nonsense of Kurtág—or Bartók. In fact, what we heard sounded more akin to a caricature of the already self-caricatured Nikolas Harnoncourt, with strange pieces of 1960s music theatre thrown in for no apparent reason. I found myself wanting to cry out: ‘could you just calm down and let Mozart speak, preferably sing?’ There were odd sources of light, still mannered, but at least vaguely coherent, such as the first movement’s development section, but alas few and far between. The third movement came off best, the minuet relatively mainstream in conception and all the better for it, although both trios were more odd than anything else, the first seemingly wanting to be Beethoven, the second Haydn, Mozart nowhere to be found. Much of the finale sounded as if it had been turned inside out with choppy phrasing, perverse emphases, and unfathomable tempi.

Salzburg Festival (5) - Ariadne auf Naxos, 24 August 2026

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:20:45 +0000

Haus für Mozart

Images: © SF/Thomas Aurin

Composer – Kate Lindsey
Primadonna, Ariadne – Christina Nilsson
Tenor, Bacchus – Eric Cutler
Zerbinetta – Ziyi Dai
Major-domo – Johannes Silberschneider
Music Master – Christoph Pohl
Dancing Master – Jonas Hacker
Harlequin – Leon Košavić
Scaramuccio – Michael Porter
Truffaldino – Lukas Enoch Lemcke
Brighella – Theodor Browne
Naiad – Jasmin Delfs
Driad – Ana Mittermüller
Echo – Marlene Metzger
Wigmaker – Blaž Stajnko
Lackey – Fabian-Jakob Balkhausen
Officer – Fabio Dorizzi
Dancers – Ashley Elexandra Wright, Yume Takojima, Anton Ruslanovych, Samuel Young-Wright
Actors – Leo Albertini, Maximilian Montag, Martin Preiner, Paridam Schneider, Christian Walker

Director, designs, costumes – Ersan Mondtag
Lighting – Franck Evin
Choreography – Ashley Alexandra Wright
Video – Alexander Pannier
Dramaturgy – Till Briegleb

Assistant designer – Lorenz Paul Stöger

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Manfred Honeck (conductor)

A musically outstanding Ariadne auf Naxos, as well played as any I have heard, was here alas let down by a frankly idiotic staging, directed by the recently fashionable ‘interdisciplinary artist’ Ersan Mondtag. Let me resume the good musical news, which was very good indeed. I am not sure I had heard Manfred Honeck conduct an opera before, although in addition to serving as Music Director in Stuttgart for several years, he will have played in many as a violinist in the Vienna Philharmonic, here led by his brother Rainer. Doubtless it did no harm to be ‘one of them’, for the musicians clearly trusted and responded to him as they would to few others, combining a sense of chamber music writ large with unassuming yet unquestionable musical flexibility and direction. Harmony and counterpoint combined in near-Mozartian balance in an orchestra of soloists. Rarely if ever have I heard so much of the score, inner string parts in particular: not simply for its own sake, but musically and thereby dramatically enriching the drama. Tristan in particular could be heard informing various passages of the Opera proper: not only in the obvious, intertextual ways, but in those string textures, their direction, and their potentiality. This may not have been a brazenly modernistic Strauss, but then this is a particular work with its own brand of neoclassicism avant la lettre: one rooted in, yet in no sense hidebound by, tradition, and with frames of historical reference in almost any direction one might care to take, not least what we call the French Baroque (though ‘Classicism’ arguably makes greater sense). I can pay Honeck’s direction no greater compliment than to say I should love to hear him in a Mozart or Wagner opera, or indeed more Strauss. And if he can encourage this orchestra to play like that, he should definitely conduct more opera in Salzburg and Vienna.

With this of all operas, we need to keep several operatic balls in the air at the same time, and show ourselves to be doing so. Whatever nonsense they were called to by the director, the singers shone vocally bright indeed. Christina Nilsson, served particularly ill by Mondtag’s designs, nevertheless offered a thoughtful, radiant performance as Ariadne. At one point, I found myself wondering wishing the late Jessye Norman had been cast, in order to put the production where it deserved, but otherwise I was more than happy with her successor. Ziyi Da was a delight from beginning to end as Zerbinetta, her coloratura responding perfectly to the needs of a drama both necessarily italicised and natural. If I have heard a better Music Master than Christoph Pohl, I have forgotten him, which seems unlikely. A warmly Wagnerian baritone, with just the right amount of ironic distance, sounded just what Hofmannsthal and Strauss had ordered. If it is difficult to wax too lyrical about a Bacchus, that reflects the thanklessness of the role; Eric Cutler did all that was asked for him and more. Jonas Hacker’S Dancing Master, Leon Košavić’s Harlequin, the euphonious trio of Jasmin Delfs, Ana Mittermüller, and Marlene Metzger: these and others all attested to casting from depth, repaid in intelligence, good humour, and tonal warmth. A host of dancers and actors did well what presumably had been asked of them too.

I have left to the end Kate Lindsey’s Composer, not because she proved an exception, but because her character, alas, leads us directly to Mondtag’s staging. If, to begin with, I found her singing a touch on the harsh side, it blossomed into one of the most moving accounts of Strauss’s paean to music I have heard. It is one of those unmistakeable moments when the master of musical masks lets his slip, or at least has us think it does, and had me in tears. (The Vienna Philharmonic was at least an equal partner here of course.) But the reason, I suspect, I had taken longer to warm to her performance was that she had been landed with having to play the Composer not as a successor to Cherubino, but rather as a strangely dressed, ‘uptight’ middle-aged woman with a twitch. In offering what she did, Lindsey probably did precisely what had been asked for, prior to casting caution to the winds. That was not the worst of it, by any means. In what came across, rightly or wrongly, as crass misogyny, this woman was enabled, during the Opera, to ‘loosen up’ with the aid of a spliff or two, Zerbinetta removing the Composer’s top so that she could wander haplessly around the stage in her bra, prior to tentatively joining in one of the most tedious all-in orgies you will ever have the misfortune to observe.

The attempt, as New Labour might have had it, to sex up Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s dodgy dossier was often embarrassing, but always dull and increasingly so. Where the Prologue’s setting, on a spaceship flown to Mars, with a variety of peculiarly dressed people, had merely irritated but had not especially got in the way, the Opera suggested a supreme lack of interest on the part of the production team in anything remotely connected with the work, let alone its musical and verbal text. Characters from the Prologue wandered around to no particular end, as if in search of a bus that alas was never coming. Curiously joyless sex, with a bias towards revelation of the male form, carried on throughout. For some reason or none, Zerbinetta and her troupe either – according to taste – took the controls of the spaceship or engaged in a television quiz show.

Finally, Bacchus arrived as a golden spaceman, to leave with Ariadne, only to have the Major-Domo press a button and explode their ship. If the argument were, as seemed suggested in the dramaturge’s programme note, that this was offering a contemporary critique of artistic patronage, it failed completely in its aim, let alone in presenting any idea, Strauss’s, Hofmannsthal’s, or anyone else’s, of transformation. But if that were being offered, perhaps some consideration might have been given to which version of the opera would be presented. Only a little better thought out than the production, this note gave the impression of not even having appreciated this was an issue, referring baldly to the ‘premiere’ in Vienna in 1916. Sebastian Bolz’s accompanying essay was, by contrast, excellent: a model introduction to the work.

As the celebrated Turkish proverb has it, when a clown moves into a palace, he does not become the sultan; the palace becomes a circus. I suspect the production team would claim their work was ‘about’ this relationship rather than simple evidence of it. There is, of course, nothing intrinsically wrong with a circus or the idea of one, though it is hardly to be equated to the commedia dell’arte. It is not, though, suited to everything—especially when it never leaves the shallows of a mere ‘look’. Achim Freyer’s (almost) one-size-all approach could become wearing, but there was no doubting his craft, his pursuit of an idea, his ability to conjure up a new world within the confines of his aesthetic, and the theatrical magic he could, at his best, create. His Magic Flute, which I saw for the first time here in Salzburg in 1999, was a case in point: perhaps still the most memorable and magical I have seen. If you have never seen so much as a still from a low-budget 70s sci-fi series and would happily see it irrelevantly created on stage, seasoned with a torrent of aimless dry-humping observed by an occasional refugee from the land of Teletubbies, Zirkus Mondtag will descend next summer on Bayreuth for Parsifal.

September upcoming

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:10:49 +0000

The season starts to ramp up a bit…

Concerts and Opera

September 1st at Lula Lounge, Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye, present Leonard Cohen in Yiddish as part of the Ashkenaz Festival.
September 18th is the opening of Verdi’s La Traviata at the Four Seasons Centre. There are ten performances split between two casts with the last on October 17th.
September 23rd sees the Ensemble Studio open the Free Concert Series in the RBA. Note these shows are still free but are now ticketed.
September 30th is National Truth and Reconciliation Day and the COC has a lunchtime lecture/recital in the RBA by mezzo Camryn Dewar on The Evolution of Female Indigenous Representation in Canadian Opera from 1879 to Present.

Theatre etc.

September 12th at the Theatre Centre Icarus Theatre presents the Canadian Premiere of Walden by Amy Berryman. Previews are on the 10th and 11th and it runs to the 26th.
September 17th is open ing night for Soulpepper’s production of Wedekind’s Spring Awakening. Previews start on September 10th and the run extends to the 30th.
September 24th is opening night for Wine in the Wilderness at CanStage Berkeley Street. Previews begin on the 19th and it runs until October 4th.
Also on the 24th Nightwood Theatre’s production of Erin Shields’ Invite to a Flame opens at the Jackman Performance Centre. Previews start on the 22nd and t runs until October 4th.
The 24th to the 27th sees multiple shows in Youngplace at Sweet Action Theatre and Small World Music Centre as part of the What The Festival. Multiple clown, puppet and drag acts.
September 29th is the opening for Sasha Ivanochko’s Heaven; a music-less dance work for three naked dancers. It’s at the theatre centre and runs until October 3rd.

Salzburg Festival (4) - Saint François d’Assise, 23 August 2026

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:14:38 +0000

Felsenreitschule

Images: © SF/Monika Rittershaus

The Angel – Lauranne Oliva
Saint François – Philippe Sly
The Leper – Sean Panikkar
Brother Léon – Russell Braun
Brother Massée – Léo Vermot-Desroches
Brother Élie – Aaron-Casey Gould
Brother Bernard – Willard White
Brother Sylvestre – Marius Aron
Brother Rufin – Ivan Lyvch

Saint Francis’s father – Ingo Arbeiter
Saint Francis’s mother – Ingeborg Haidinger
Leper (actor) – Georg Schwamberger

Angels – Eirck Godoy, Ilaria Quaglia, Nicholas Sambou, Davide Troiani, Lisa Vilret, Sebastian Zamaro
Brothers – Felix Chang, Antoine Effroy, Nikos Fragkou, Emanuele Ospelt, Davide Sportelli, Emile Wendt

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera (chorus director: Jozef Chabroň)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Maxime Pascal (conductor)

Salzburg’s new Saint François d’Assise, directed by Romeo Castellucci and conducted by Maxime Pascal, with Philippe Sly in the title role, single-handedly justifies the somewhat mixed operatic results of Markus Hinterhäuser’s now concluded intendancy. This was an event, an experience not only of the highest, most challenging artistic order, but extended beyond that, building to a transcendental encounter in the third act that I am sure will remain with those who underwent, no participated in, it for the rest of their lives. That is in large part a matter of the work, of course, Messiaen’s avowed summa; or rather, the work was an indispensable fons et origo for it. But the palpable ambition, commitment and – doubtless in various forms – belief shown from all concerned were equally crucial. Taking steps, as it does, not merely beyond the at-best wonderful, yet also too-often-infuriating aesthetic of opera, but beyond Wagner’s renewal of Attic tragedy and Schoenberg’s theological transformation of Wagnerian music drama, to an opera that arguably belongs less in our opera houses even than Parsifal or Moses und Aron, and yet in its rebuke and challenges alike to them helps justify their continued existence and promise them new life, Saint François may be a one-off, but it is an absolutely necessary one-off. More to the point, it felt and, quite simply, was so here, an inspired contribution to the eight-hundredth anniversary of St Francis’s death, as well as a crucial demonstration of what art, religion, and humanity can and must do if they are to survive—and to be worthy of survival.

The total commitment of Sly’s performance in its physical extremity as well as its astounding musical range was foremost among the wonders experienced. Call it inspiration, call it faith, call it what you will: here was an artist responding to and creating something extraordinary—in tandem with his fellow artists and the work itself. Lauranne Oliva’s Angel was a voice and presence of radiant clarity, as unanswerable and unknowable as the place from which (s)he had come. Russell Braun’s beautifully sung Brother Leo offered a more attainable or at least approachable example, imploring and certain in faith, ineffably human as, like the rest of the brothers, he sought the way. Willard White’s Brother Bernard imparted a striking, equally touching voice of older faith. All presented voices and faces of a community, a path, that connected us to the world of saints, angels, and divinity.

The opening of Castellucci’s staging offered a frame closer to more typical contemporary opera as anything we should proceed to see (or hear), but quite rightly one soon forgotten, even discarded. In a museum – yes, our museum of musical works – the young Francis was called to leave all behind: his fine clothes, art, family (his father reappearing briefly in the final scene, but no longer in any sense the focus) himself to begin the route to the beyond: first beyond society, even beyond established monasticism, and ultimately Beyond. Shedding his fine clothes, as did the historical Francis, he was born anew, as were his followers, in a water both of baptism and of, straightforwardly, elemental water, pouring from the ceiling and, in one of many striking images of Castelluccian installation-drama, apparently petrified, water emerging miraculously as if from a fountain. Brothers, singers and dancers alike, joined him, likewise losing all, one shaved onstage, in the promise of gaining all—through a life of obedience, prayer, belief, charity, and art that is heavenly rather than temporal. Such is no easy path, of course, and only Francis could truly take on the ultimate challenge, that of Christ’s Cross, but others would participate as they could: whether in baking bread during Lauds in onstage ovens, its unmistakeable aroma inviting us to the refectory for physical interval sustenance; in receiving the Angel and its questions about predestination; in accepting not only the Leper, but his leprosy as part of God’s creation, a blow against Cathar and other heresy; in wandering, even wallowing in a mud, a filth as far removed from Francis’s fine origins as could be imagined; and of course with the birds and other of God’s creatures (all featured at different points onstage: wolf (of Gubbio), bird, and sacrificial lambs, as well as representations).

There was much more, yet nothing was hurried, the production taking its necessary time as did the musical performance. If some of the visual displays might have worked better, ironically, in a museum – a giant picture, for instance, of a child regaining the ability to hear – then many others were deeply touching, not least a confession to which it was difficult not to assent, quasi-heretically, in artistic communion: ‘Je t’aime, Olivier, immense artiste’. The birds in Francis’s sermon took on new, tragic meaning when shown, both onstage as near death and on screen in funerary naming, in reference to the ecological devastation of our age. But for the most part, the preaching was not Castelucci’s, or ours, but that of Francis and perhaps something lying beyond even him. This was not a place for argument, for discussion, but for mystery and for truth. We could recognise that more readily, however strenuous the demand, in the acceptance of the leper (acted by an old man, apparently wasted away, yet sung and doubled already by an angelic Sean Panikkar in white), mirrored towards the close when the latter returned to wash Francis on his way to the beyond. The ravishing beauty of Panikkar’s singing added further levels of theological as well as dramatic understanding, as of course did the Vienna Philharmonic’s celestial invitation (and those of the ondes Martenot, played by Nathalie Forget, Augustin Viard, and Cécile Lartigau). The image of Panikkar as angelic leper emanation, to borrow slightly from Stockhausen, kneading together Francis and physical Leper under a cloth for them to emerge in quasi-communion, even quasi-transubstantiated, as living counterpart to the bread whose baking (and oven steam) similarly pervaded the Felsenreitschule, made perfect liturgical sense in the moment—a key condition, of course, for any form of liturgical acceptance, not necessarily to be expected out of context. Ritual lived, brought to life, and yet, as with Our Lord, ultimately pointed to death—and thereafter resurrection.

For later, in the stigmata scene, we were unmistakeably in the world of dark mysteries it was and could not be given to us to understand. As with Francis, we must simply submit. A chill orchestral wind summoned by Pascal and the orchestra both formed a foundation for and intensified the dark images onstage, all having changed as we approached the beginning of the end. In dance, image, and music, it might almost have been a black (or better, dark) mass, a reminder that true sacrilege may closer approach – an essential term here – the sacred than so much of our banal, daily lives, ‘religious’ or ‘secular’. Not everything, here as in art and religion more generally, was necessarily to be understood or experienced representationally. Was that apparently sacramental mound from which so much dirt and darkness came anything of the kind? Did it summon the grave later to be dug by skeletal figures, one of them Francis? Or were these the wrong questions to ask, evidence that we had not yet been called? Red may have signalled blood; it may simply, joyously, agonisingly, have been red (to synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes alike). Angel wings were surely, though, on at least one level what they seemed to be: providing, and of Providence, something towards which Francis, once further shorn of strength and submitted to those dark figures (of Hell?) could reach, ultimately to join a company of Heaven that may have been easier, or at least less impossible, for Francis’s mediaeval mind than ours to grasp.

And yet, this is a work of modernity, a singular version no doubt, but no less modern for that. Messiaen engaged with the newest as well as the oldest music; he instructed many of its composers, as well as writing it himself. Pascal left us in no doubt he head internalised this musical language, its capabilities, and its emotions, to bring it, like Francis – and us – to new life. Birds, for Messiaen God’s finest musicians, sang more clearly than all, uninhibited, acting from their essence, knowing no other. This we heard from all sections of the orchestra, gamelan-percussion in near-surround sound included. Counterpoint and harmony mesmerised as Creation itself returned to life. But there was more to it than that single miracle. There was existential dread, harmonic and timbral; there was radiant, human joy; there was a new sense of time; there was the Angel’s unearthly viol. Ultimately, there was the coming together of all, in orchestral and choral divine encounter, an experience so overwhelming one felt one had actually met God. That did not happen by itself, through mere grace, for this was still art: the work had been prepared, paced, and permitted to speak for itself in its succession of tableaux. Its inevitability, though, was undeniable. In the numinous, astonishing, overwhelming closing bars, instruments, creatures, alleluias, and other songs of praise resounding, we came together as the angels had promised Francis: poetry and music leading us, as with Bach, to God Himself. This is not the only thing opera or art can and should do; but it felt, for many hours after, that it might (yet) be the most important.

Random Thoughts About Inflation

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 21:27:38 +0000

Inflation, the sustained rise in the general level of prices, is almost as old as money itself. Although individual prices may increase because something becomes scarce, true inflation occurs when prices rise broadly and money consequently loses purchasing power. There are seemingly endless ways to make prices rise and thereby erode the purchasing power of whatever form of money is in use. From reducing the content of whatever precious metal was used in a coin without changing its nominal value to printing money barely worth its paper content, governments have been at it for millennia.

My subject is mostly shrinkflation. Manufacturers have long responded to rising costs by reducing a package’s quantity while keeping its price unchanged. Selling fewer ounces of coffee, a shorter candy bar, or fewer sheets on a roll are typical examples. Because buyers notice price increases more readily than small changes in weight or count, downsizing can be less damaging to sales than openly raising the price.

My view is limited to a few creative examples of the practice now in widespread use or potentially in use. The first is selling yourself into slavery to pay your debts or to beat price increases that outstripped your income. In the early Republic, an insolvent Roman might enter nexum, a form of debt bondage abolished in 326 BC. During the later Empire, desperately poor people sometimes entered arrangements resembling self-enslavement, despite the legal principle that a freeborn Roman could not sell himself. Using this expedient today would run afoul of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. Since there are those who consider the document to be outmoded and a barrier to progress, this impediment should be easy to overcome. Those with a sturdier moral compass could stay free and sell their children into bondage.

The term shrinkflation became widely used in the 2010s and especially during the post-pandemic inflation of the early 2020s. However, documented package reductions go back many decades. During the inflationary 1970s, food producers commonly reduced package sizes, substituted cheaper ingredients, or both.

It is not necessarily fraudulent if the new quantity is accurately disclosed. The objection is that the change is easy to overlook, particularly when the package itself remains nearly the same size. Shrinkflation is therefore neither a new form of inflation nor a separate cause of it; it is an old method of making inflation less conspicuous.

Consider Cocoa Puffs. The family-size box is the same size but now contains 18.1 ounces, down from 19. Why should a site that has opera as a main focus care about Cocoa Puffs? Read this article: Mad Max Meets Mozart – 2004 and all will be revealed. If you’re too busy to delve into the absurd, here’s a key sentence from my review of an English National Opera production of Don Giovanni staged by the crazy Catalan director Calixto Bieito: Both the Don and Leporello are inordinately fond of cold cereal, Coco Pops to be precise. Bieito may find himself priced out of material for future productions because, without cold cereal, his creative juices may solidify.

The amount of dental floss contained in a regular-sized container is shrinking so rapidly that I now only have enough to floss either my upper or lower teeth before having to start a new roll. Soon there may only be enough for a single tooth. But the package is as big as ever.

Shrinkflation has even engulfed the corrida de toros. I’m not writing about ticket prices, which have increased faster than the price of gold. Rather, I’m concerned with the indulto. To those unfamiliar with the labyrinthine rules and customs of the Spanish bullfight, the indulto (the pardon) is the sparing of a bull’s life because it is a spectacular example of what a brave bull is supposed to be. It is supposed to be so rare that even an inveterate bullfight attendee might go through life without seeing a bull pardoned. Madrid’s Las Ventas, the most important plaza de toros in the world, has issued the indulto just once. Plaza México in Mexico City, by contrast, has granted 37 indultos. But the Mexico City venue has not increased the rate at which it pardons bulls over the last 60 years.

The plethora of indultos has occurred mainly in third-category and provincial plazas. A historical comparison for Spain reveals 11 indultos in the nineteenth century, 42 in the twentieth century, and more than 350 so far in the twenty-first. The term “indultitis” is used to criticize Spain’s lesser plazas. A genuine indulto ought to recognize extraordinary behavior throughout the lidia, above all at the horse, and identify a bull worth using as a semental (seed bull). Too often today it rewards a long, crowd-pleasing muleta performance. That is a different, and substantially lower, standard.

Enough about a phenomenon many Americans find repulsive – when they think about it at all. And it’s not true shrinkflation anyway. But it is characteristic of the Western world’s current tendency to want more than is earned.

Toilet paper presents a problem more immediate than the fate of faraway bovines. Today’s rolls contain fewer or smaller sheets even when described as “mega” or “double” rolls. Families in need have been forced to practice ritual constipation. Others have adopted a liquid diet. Congress threatens to act. The Republicans say the last tax bill will soon solve the problem and urge both patience and continence. The Democrats say inflation will solve the problem. Dollar bills will be cheaper than toilet paper, creating a new use for paper money.

Finally, an issue with which I have direct experience: Instant Water. I invented the stuff decades ago but never patented it, so anyone can make it. The standard-size packet contains 16 ounces, though larger packets are available. I’ll concentrate on the 16-ounce size. Its use is simple. Just add 16 ounces of water to the contents of the packet, and you have enough to drink or use for whatever aquatic need is at hand. Since the financial crisis of 2008, the amount of Instant Water in a packet, whose size has not changed. has been reduced until it is now sufficient to make only 8 ounces of potable water. As the ingredients of Instant Water are as light as air, its manufacturers hope the public won’t notice. But even a registered voter can tell the difference between 16 and 8 ounces.

Salzburg Festival (3) - ‘Hommage à Kurtág’: Brahms, Kurtág, Schumann, and Ligeti, 22 August 2026

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 15:21:36 +0000

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Brahms: Trio for violin, horn, and piano, in E-flat major, op.40
Kurtág: Hommage à R.Sch. for clarinet, viola, and piano, op.15d
Schumann: Märchenerzählungen for clarinet, viola, and piano, op.132
Ligeti: Trio for violin, horn, and piano

Noah Bendix-Bagley (violin)

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Daniel Ottensamer (clarinet)

Stefan Dohr (horn)

Kirill Gerstein (piano)

Images: © SF/Marco Borrelli

This is what I call programming. Kirill Gerstein essentially brought together two unusual chamber ensembles, him common to both, to perform works by two celebrated pairs of composers: contemporary master and disciple (though more complicated than that) themselves in some sense responding to their predecessors. Joined by Noah Bendix-Bagley and Stefan Dohr for the Brahms and Ligeti for violin, horn, and piano, and by Tabea Zimmermann and Daniel Ottensamer for works by Kurtág and Schumann, Gerstein wrought a moving centenary tribute to György Kurtág, whose life and work in many ways offer a conspectus of the Western classical tradition, such as one would only find at a festival such as Salzburg’s.

For the Brahms Horn Trio, opening balance sounded a little odd, or perhaps it was more a matter of my ears adjusting. At any rate, this was a fine performance of a work with nowhere to hide—and no reason to need such a place. The first movement’s metrical and harmonic ambiguities offer difficulties for players and listeners alike, but there was no problem at all on the former side. This is difficult music and should never be thought easy listening, but these were musicians who enabled form to emerge as emotional as well as structural progression. The scherzo came to life as an ebullient, even disturbing homage to Mozart and Beethoven, wild in its Brahmsian discipline and in the occasional hint, never realised, that such discipline might be overruled. Its trio offered darkly Romantic balance and, within, a new world of chiaroscuro, prior to a still more intense reprise of the scherzo. The slow movement was darkly introspective to begin with, developing into defiance rather than merely stating it, whether outwardly fragile or overtly impassioned. More than once, I could not help but notice affinities with Die Walküre, its material as well as its mood. (I must consult the score for myself.) The sense of musical ‘lighting’ – slightly different, I think from shading – offered by all three players was exquisitely expressive, founded in yet never to be reduced to harmonic motion. The release of the finale was no less felt, or more remarkable, for its complexity, striking a keen balance between hints of the cyclical and the developing variation that is the essence of so much Brahms. Here was the culmination of a mighty river’s flow.

Kurtág’s Hommage à R.Sch. brought the ‘other’ ensemble onstage. The first miniature, ‘(merkwürdige Pirouetten des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler)‘ created a scurrying theatre stage of the mind, unmistakeably in the line of Webern, but equally unmistakeably Kurtág. Semi-whispered, hyper-Romantic confidences in the second effected a beautifully moving synthesis at the close, to be disrupted immediately by Florestan/Schoenberg’s third, equally beautiful in Pierrot-like violence, and further balanced or rather sublated in fourth and fifths movement in which semi-return to the mood of the second was, in nicely Schumannesque fashion, complicated by helter-skelter response. The sixth movement, longer than the first five combined, though still relatively brief, brought a properly Kurtágian haunting in response to Pierrot’s comings and goings, crystalline perfection in work and performance the means to emotional and intellectual integrity and depth. This was the air and indeed landscape of another planet, our revels ending with the unshowiest, yet most certain of drumstrokes from Ottensamer: a soldier’s tale, perhaps.

After the interval, Gerstein, Zimmermann, and Ottensamer returned for Schumann’s late Märchenerzählungen, the first in context offering a whimsy not unrelated to Kurtág’s. This was unmistakeably a fairy tale opening, the page turned: ‘once upon a time…’, the story told with palpable delight from all concerned, and in as ultimately harmonious a world we can imagine this side of Mozart. Its successor proved similarly touching: this may not be music ‘for children’, but there seemed little doubt they would like and ‘get’ it. The rapt euphony of the third piece was also touching in its simplicity. (Again, few composers after Mozart have had that gift, although Kurtág does.) It brought tears to my eyes. Similarly good-humoured, the fourth and final tale was more overtly fantastical, even Hoffmannesque—which returned us to Kurtág and his homage.

For the Ligeti Trio, the players seemed more immediately at ease than in the Brahms, their instruments ‘speaking’ and indeed singing eloquently from the off. If any other composer occasionally came to mind, it was first Berg (especially on violin), later Bartók (especially on piano); but in reality it could have been none other than Ligeti—and ‘late’ Ligeti at that. Every note and every relationship between them enchanted as strongly as Schumann’s or Kurtág’s. Such Mozartian ease with such unusual forces announced in the first movement continued throughout all four, the second offering a riveting walk on the post-Bartókian wildside. Bendix-Balgley’s harmonics, Dohr’s contrapuntal lines, Gerstein’s well, everything combined to mesmerise. Talk about having rhythm, Ligeti included—and harmonic rhythm just as much. The third movement sounded at first as if a response to an imagined Schumann march, before pursuing other, very different, though not less fantastical paths in a directness that again suggested the smiling ghost of Bartók. And if hearing this work in the same concert as Brahms’s Trio for the same forces rightly brought difference rather than kinship more strongly to the fore, there was an undeniable Brahms-like satisfaction in what we heard here, ever more so in the final movement: simply itself and unanswerable. Bells tolled for someone or something: maybe for us. If so, the composer of Le Grand Macabre might have reminded us that it would not have been the first time we had failed to notice.

Salzburg Festival (2) - Hadelich/VPO/Thielemann: Brahms, 22 August 2026

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 14:00:02 +0000

Grosses Festspielhaus

Violin Concerto in D major, op.77
Symphony no.1 in C minor, op.68

Augustin Hadelich (violin)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Images:© SF/Marco Borrelli

A frustrating concert, this: on account of neither Augustin Hadelich nor the Vienna Philharmonic, but rather of Christian Thielemann’s conducting, which certainly had its moments, its passages even, yet could readily have offered much more. Consistency can over over- and underrated: no one wants consistent mediocrity and the twin curiosity and courage not to rest on laurels and thus to try something different are often to be lauded. Proof of the pudding lies in the eating, though, and difference for its own sake will rarely be a good thing. Here, above all in the First Symphony, a strange eschewal of harmonic rhythm, tracing Brahms – of all composers – at worst as if this music were merely a succession of melodies and at best in a fashion born more of operatic than symphonic drama, culminating in a strange two-movement dash to the finish, as if Thielemann had simply had enough, fell some way short of the deep, intense satisfaction that is this composer’s wont. If it would be unjust to speculate that his mind might have been in Bayreuth, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that his heart was.

I shall return to the Symphony. The Violin Concerto offered better news, although that was mostly Hadelich and the orchestra’s doing, Thielemann showing himself an able, sensitive accompanist rather than equal partner. How much can one tell from an opening phrase and, more broadly, an opening tutti? Here, quite a bit: it was rhetorical, theatrical even, something of a curtain-raiser, without really leading to what the curtain might reveal on Hadelich’s entry. Throughout, all in Hadelich’s interpretation felt born in the notes, in their connection, and what that created, constituting the work’s form as both structure and emotional fabric. Hadelich’s golden tone, variegated yet centred, harked back to a mythical yet enduring idea of a Golden Age of violin playing, intriguingly set against a somewhat darker toned VPO (not something one especially associates with that orchestra). Thielemann proved ever attentive, visibly and audibly listening and responding, yet rarely assertive, as will often, ideally, be called for; and when it was, skirting slight mannerism. It was telling, no doubt, that the truest instrumental drama came in the cadenza: not one I recognised—I wonder whether it was Hadelich’s own. At any rate, it learned lessons from celebrated predecessors, whilst treading its own path with confidence and genuine rejuvenation. The way Hadelich built tension through counterpoint that became harmony, extending Brahms both as himself and as a true disciple of Bach, was invigorating, yet pointed to an apparent lack of harmonic interest on Thielemann’s part. It was not grievous; one hears far, far worse, especially from the ‘authentic’ brigade, but something was missing, if here more by way of contrast. It was Hadelich, doubtless rightly, but perhaps to an undue extent, who gave the impression of inviting the orchestra back in.

Wind playing – not only the oboist’s, though certainly his – of the highest distinction marked the second movement. There was a definite lateness without mawkishness to this ‘Adagio’: a heartfelt tribute and even a farewell to a Classicism that underlay all and yet was no longer quite within reach. That beautiful yet melancholy thought elicited string (solo and section) consolation before darkness emerged beneath the surface. This, then, was truly a movement of Romantic anguish, born from within rather than applied to it. Hadelich’s song – and how his violin sang – was an achievement rather than a given, however little it lay in doubt. Thielemann imparted a strong sense of what might have been—in more than one sense. A strong turnout from the Phlegm Liberation Front notwithstanding, Brahms ultimately won out in a finale launched with little rather than no break. It may have been a matter of where I was seated, but early on the VPO’s tone sounded oddly harsh here. Transitions and other shifts were generally well handled, but ultimately this was a movement (for me) more observed than shared—again, largely on Thielemann’s account. For an encore, Hadelich gave what I believe to be his own arrangement of Schumann’s ‘Träumerei’: unfussy, resourceful, and closing on magical harmonics.

Thielemann initially seemed more obviously at home in the Symphony, conducting from memory and shaping the opening of the first movement into a compelling, if not truly harmonically founded, drama. (The greatest Brahms conductors from Furtwängler and Klemperer to Barenboim would immediately show what was missing.) A palpable sense of tragic narrative was present, though, whatever slight reservations one might have felt. A strange noise from within the audience – electronic interference? – disrupted a little, but orchestra, composer, and, here at least, conductor emerged victorious from that tussle. Had the performance continued in similar terms, one might well have located it broadly as lying within the tradition of Karajan—and there are far worse things than that. Hints of motivic Beethoven towards the close already suggested, though, a little of what else might have been underplayed earlier. There was, though, undeniable eloquence to the second movement, not least through the way the orchestra ‘spoke’—again, perhaps a little operatic, but there is more than enough room for different approaches here. The emotional ambivalence of its opening well established the contest to come, even if overall tone was a little on the bright side for Brahms (at least to my taste).

Following a further barrage of coughing, the third movement began at a tempo that felt faster than any I could recall. If it was difficult objectively to square with ‘Un poco Allegretto e grazioso’, it had its own logic in lifting of mood and proved surprisingly convincing—until textures became more congested than flowing. Its later course, though, was straightforwardly odd: slowing massively and ending in perplexing disappointment. The finale likewise began well enough, laying out its material clearly and bringing an undeniable sense of suspense. That horn call was all one could wish for, and the principal theme sounded beautifully, if in oddly soft focus. ‘Più Allegro’, though? It was certainly più, but to my ears considerably troppo. What ensued was driven in a way one might have thought – hoped – had gone out of fashion with Toscanini, albeit without his preparation and aesthetic. Harmonic understanding and communication seemed to have gone out of the window in order to catch the next train home.

Salzburg Festival (1) - Der Prinz von Homburg, 20 August 2026

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:45:16 +0000

Felsenreitschule

(concert performance)

Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg - Maximilian Schmitt
The Electress – Tanja Ariane Baumgartner
Princess Natalie of Orange – Kathrin Zukowski
Field Marshal Dörfling – Lauri Vasar
Frederick Arthur, Prince of Homburg – Georg Nigl
Colonel Kottwitz – Anthony Robin Schneider
Count Hohenzollern – Magnus Dietrich
First Officer – Konstantin Igl
Second Officer – Gabriel Rollinson
Third Officer – Philipp Schöllhorn
First Lady of the Court – Hanna Park
Second Lady of the Court – Freya Apffelstaedt
Third Lady of the Court – Brigitta Listra
Sergeant, Second Orderly – Marcel Durka
First Orderly – Johannes Bamberger

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Ingo Metzmacher (conductor)

Images: © SF/Marco Borrelli

Mention, let alone celebration, of Hans Werner Henze’s centenary has proved surprisingly muted, if not entirely unmarked—at least in continental Europe. Simon Rattle, a longstanding advocate, has given performances of Henze’s oratorio The Raft of the Medusa with his new orchestra in Munich, following on from an outstanding performance here in Salzburg last summer. Munich, long an important centre for Henze performance, saw a new staging of The English Cat by the Bavarian State Opera over the winter of 2025-6, so strictly not a new production this year, although close to being so. El Cimarrón, a scenic music theatre piece rather than an opera, has been given in Rome, Aix-en-Provence, and the composer’s birthplace, the small Westphalian city of Gütersloh. By and large, though, opera and symphonic performances have proved little less frequent than usual over the past decade, which is to say strikingly less frequent than during his lifetime.

Whilst it was difficult not to feel a certain disappointment at the Salzburg Festival’s decision to give Der Prinz von Homburg in a single concert performance – sold out, be it noted – rather than a full staging, we should still be grateful for this celebration of the twin centenaries of Hans Werner Henze and Ingeborg Bachmann, born but six days apart in 1926. Theirs was a fruitful partnership extending over roughly a decade, beginning in 1955 with the composer’s provision of incidental music for Bachmann’s radio play Die Zikaden, its German narrator having fled to an Italian island. (Both Henze and Bachmann had taken that road south too.) A crucial context for this opera, the first of two, was the 1957 song-cycle Nachtstücke und Arien, with which Henze, with typical theatricality, staged his separation from an avant-garde of which he had never really been part in the first place. (One should be wary of his accounts of what happened, but that in part makes them all the more valuable aesthetically. Yet, as so often with Henze, the more he voiced his dissociation from German art, the more he also found himself drawn to it. Kleist’s play Prinz Friedrich von Homburg had achieved and, in a sense, suffered great popularity during both the Second Reich and the Third, and thus stood potentially as tainted for Henze and Bachmann as German Romantic music, especially when dealing with a German stage and audience. That held, almost irrespective of the aesthetic admiration its recreators both felt. The effort, then, in this opera not to be German is palpable, doomed, and fascinating—which is not to say that it is only German. (What is, or would wish to be? Pfitzner, perhaps, and probably not.)

The conflicts at work in the score, not only mirroring but extending and intensifying those in the libretto came through strongly in this account from the ORF Symphony Orchestra, Ingo Metzmacher, and a distinguished cast. If I felt occasional passages of softer focus earlier on, I think that was in part a matter of listening my way in and also in part also a reflection of Henze’s writing. After all, in In his own words, ‘Der Prinz von Homburg … sets itself against the blind unimaginative application of laws, in favour of an exaltation of human kindness, an understanding of which reaches into deeper and more complex realms than would be “normal” and which seeks to find a place for a man in this world even though he is a Schwärmer and a dreamer, or perhaps because of that.’ There is a distinctive basic sound-world to the opera, blueish in hue, which takes on and sublimates, even to an extent pacifies the militarism one might expect. There is also certainly a strange dream-world that extends from that, heading the cantata Being Beauteous of a few years later, yet nonetheless shaped in trauma by what has gone before: politically, aesthetically, and perhaps ethically too.

To present march rhythms on the harp, for instance, rather than trumpets and drums, seemed a statement, an act of hostility towards authorities that had brought the world to war in drama as on earth, and might do so again—heightened by the sense of aesthetic persecution the composer himself undoubtedly, if exaggeratedly, felt for himself: cursed, as it were, to be a German composer, however much he may have wished it otherwise. If the orchestra often seemed driven, perhaps by Metzmacher, to tilt the scales, as did Henze and Bachmann, away from unwanted inheritance, in this case towards Stravinsky, victory ebbed away as soon as it was achieved—just as on the battlefield. If the strangely muted world of interiority took longer to become dramatically compelling, there is arguably point to that, both in work and in performance, Whether there is stylistic resolution or even quite coherence becomes a more pressing issue without staging; eclecticism can be too readily condemned, but also too readily celebrated. When, at its best, stylistic conflict is put to dramatic use, one heard it all the more readily. Registering with ever greater immediacy was Henze’s inner conflict between Schoenberg and Stravinsky – the Symphony in Three Movements and ‘whiter’ ballets sometimes too close for comfort – alleged determinism and freedom, calculation and dreams, depth and beauty, and so on registered with increasing power.

So too did, if less in the guise of a mediating power then humanistic intervention, understanding of the Prince of Homburg as a strange, postwar (even in war) Wozzeck-, even Christ-figure in a heterodox passion of sorts. If a concert performance could less readily convey than full staging quite who the characters on stage all were, more musical patterns could suggest something of that narrative—arguably more strongly than the work itself warrants, mind and ear compensating in unusual ways. Georg Nigl’s Prince took on the contradictions and struggles – the Prince’s and Henze’s – as his own in a performance of dramatic commitment that outweighed ‘mere’ aesthetic considerations. If occasionally he sounded a little stretched, more often Nigel emerged invigorated by the challenge. Magnus Dietrich’s honeyed Hohenzollern and Anthony Robin Schneider’s dark-chocolate Kollwitz particularly caught my ear on the male side, as on the other side of the gender divide did Kathrin Zukowski’s imploring, inwardly strong Princess Natalie and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner’s rich-toned, quasi-contralto Electress. Maximilian Schmitt ensure that, whilst the Elector’s justice might be cold, it had its own tonal allure. If Henze sometimes tilts the scales a little too obviously – Bachmann less so, I think – the cast did much, even in concert, to present a conflict worth agonising over. If the Prince’s celebrated battle-cry, ‘In Staub mit allen Feinden Brandenburgs,’ bidding Brandenburg’s foes return to dust, can no longer offer Kleist’s jubilation, it was all the more notable that ambivalence that also undercut mere tragic inversion emerged at the close.

Whether so understandably anti-militaristic, anti-Prussian a recreation ultimately quite adds up, given inevitable, nagging comparison with Kleist, remains an open question. A few years later than the opera, Pierre Boulez spoke scathingly of Henze as a ‘lacquered hairdresser, who pays homage to an utterly superficial modernism’, here specifically in ‘an unfortunate rehashing of Verdi’s Don Carlos’. (Henze, it is only fair to add, had made for his part considerably more outrageous claims against Boulez, Stockhausen, and others.) If imaginative staging might have been able to do more to address such claims head on, this concert performance pointed further to the need to find out for ourselves. It also connected us with another centenary, falling as it did 100 years to the day after the Felsenreitschule’s first use as a performance venue by the Festival: for Max Reinhardt’s staging of Goldoni’s Il servitore di due padroni. The riding school has of course been used since for a host of memorable stage and concert performances, most renowned of all a filmed Don Giovanni conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. Should the current encounter point the way to a staging somewhere soon for Der Prinz von Homburg, it will prove still more welcome, but this will remain an important evening in its own right.

Operatraveller’s Hot Operatic Tips for 2026 – 27

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Once again, we find ourselves at the dawn of a new operatic season – at least for those theatres that organize their seasons from September to August. As is customary by now, I’ve taken a look at the operatic offerings available and pulled out some shows that look potentially interesting. Over the most recent seasons, I have tended to organize my operagoing around places that I’d like to spend time in, as much as the repertoire and casting – although the latter of course has a significant influence. With that in mind, I’ve pulled together some productions that look potentially very interesting. And so here are some very personal Hot Operatic Tips for the year ahead.

Der Rosenkavalier, Oper Köln, September – December 2026.

For a long time, it felt that this day would never come. After being exiled to the other side of the Rhine for a over a decade, the Oper Köln is finally returning to Offenbachplatz and opening with this new production of Der Rosenkavalier, by Marie-Ève Signeyrole. The run has been double cast with the opening night cast featuring Magdalena Hinterdobleras the Marschallin, Bianca Andrew as Octavian and Giulia Montanari as Sophie. The terrific young bass, Patrick Zielke, sings Ochs, while the musical direction is in the hands of music director, Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

Peter Grimes, Finnish National Opera, November 2026.

Over the past few years, since attending their Ring cycle, I have had the pleasure of hearing the house chorus in Helsinki. This is an exceptional chorus, one that is surely the one of the finest in the world, and what better opportunity to hear them than in this most choral of operas, Peter Grimes. With Daniel Brenna in the title role and the experienced interpreter of Ellen Orford, Maria Bengtsson, alongside him, this offers a genuine showcase for all that the house has to offer. The recently-appointed house music director Dima Slobodeniouk conducts David Radok’s staging.

Elektra, Opernhaus Zürich, November – December 2026.

It was in Zurich that I saw the great Evelyn Herlitzius sing her final Elektra in July 2019. Time doesn’t stand still and this fall, the house will premiere its new production of Strauss’ opera in a staging by Lydia Steier, a director who always brings ideas to a work. In the title role is Miina-Liisa Värelä an experienced interpreter of the German repertoire, whose recent Walküre Brünnhilde in Munich showed just how much she has grown as an artist. Joined by Tanja Ariane Baumgartner and Sara Jakubiak as mother and sister, with the experienced John Daszak and Gábor Bretz rounding out the lineup of principals, the performance will be conducted by Lorenzo Viotti.

Otello, Teatro alla Scala, December 2026.

The Teatro alla Scala is opening its 2026 – 7 season, the first under the music directorship of Chung Myungwhun, with this new production of Otello. Damiano Michieletto is one of the most thoughtful and emotionally engaging stage directors active today and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what he does with Verdi’s masterpiece. In the first cast, Brian Jagde returns to the title role after his notable debut in Madrid last year, while Luca Salsi sings Jago. As Desdemona, the Scala has engaged Eleonora Buratto, the finest Italian soprano before the public today. The alternative cast features Arsen Soghomonyan, Roberto Frontali, and Roberta Mantegna. I must admit it has always been a dream of mine to attend the prima at the Scala, although realistically I’m more likely to attend a later performance in the run. Still, this will be one of the most anticipated events of the season.

Kát’a Kabanová, Teatr Wielki – Opera Narodowa, January 2027.

The Warsaw Teatr Wielki – Opera Narodowa has planned a very interesting 2026 – 27 season and this new production of Kát’a Kabanová promises to be one of the highlights. It has been very excitingly cast with two of the greatest singing actors of our time in the leading roles, Aušrinė Stundytė as Kát’a and Evelyn Herlitzius as the Kabanicha. They are joined by Jamez McCorkle as Boris and Brindley Sherratt as Dikoj. Kornél Mundruczó is, by now, an experienced director of Janáček’s operas and the performance will be conducted by the new house music director, Yoel Gamzou.

The Oper Köln. Photo: © Raimond Spekking

Theodora, Grand Théâtre de Genève, January – February 2027.

While its historic home is being renovated, the Grand Théâtre de Genève will perform its new production of Händel’s oratorio in the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices. With a staging by the always insightful Krzysztof Warlikowski and led by supreme baroque stylist, Raphaël Pichon, conducting his Pygmalion chorus and orchestra, along with the resident house chorus, this promises to be an evening of vision and contemplation. The cast looks interesting, with Fang Ying in the title role, joined by Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian as Didymus, Laurence Kilsby and Niamh O’Sullivan as Septimius and Irene, and John Brancy as Valens.

Salome, Opéra de Lyon, March – April 2027.

I’m always somewhat reticent to plan to see things at theatres in the French Republic given the potential for labour disputes and cancellations, but Lyon is one of the last few significant European theatres I have had the pleasure of visiting and this new production of Salome certainly gives a reason. With stage direction by the great Calixto Bieito, and Constantin Trinks conducting, it will be fascinating to see what Bieito does with this most gruesome of operas. The cast is interesting, with British Columbian soprano Ambur Braid in the title role and Josef Wagner as Jochanaan.

Maria Stuarda, Opéra de Marseille, March 2027.

This pair of concert performances of this chapter of Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy has been very interestingly cast. With consummate bel canto stylist Jessica Pratt in the title role lining up against Teresa Iervolino as Elisabetta, we are promised an evening of authentic stylishness. In the male roles we also have the superb John Osborn as Roberto, while the highly talented, young Valencian bass Manuel Fuentes takes on Talbot. The musical direction is in the hands of house chief, Michele Spotti. In this most Italian of French cities, this is certainly one to watch.

Mazeppa, Bayerische Staatsoper, March 2027.

Dmitri Tcherniakov is one of those directors who always brings a personal stamp to the works he interprets. While some of his readings can be wayward, they’re always insightful and make the viewer feel, which is precisely what one looks for in an opera production. This new Mazeppa has been cast from strength, with Vladislav Sulimsky, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Ekaterina Gubanova, and Olga Kulchynska among the principals. Daniele Rustioni conducts. This is not likely to be a conventional Mazeppa, but it will undoubtedly be a stimulating one.

La clemenza di Tito, Teatro Municipale di Piacenza, March 2027.

The Teatro Municipale di Piacenza is one of those theatres that every opera traveller should know. Located within easy travelling distance of Milan, the house presents an interesting program with some really judicious casting. This Clemenza looks particularly interesting with Ilker Arcayürek in the title role, Mariangela Sicilia as Vitellia, and Arianna Vendittelli as Sesto. The music director of the Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone, conducts Chiara Muti’s staging. This fall, they’re also presenting a Bohème led by consummate Puccini stylist, Vincenzo Milletarì, and a Fliegende Holländer led by the energizing young conductor, Martijn Dendievel.

Finnish National Opera. Photo: © Operatraveller.com

Lucia di Lammermoor, Teatro Massimo Palermo, March 2027.

This Lucia at the Teatro Massimo is one of those shows that has been double-cast, yet both casts look equally exciting. In the title role, we have Nina Minasyan and Ruth Iniesta, while Lawrence Brownlee and Iván Ayón Rivas sing Edgardo. Enrico is shared by Artur Ruciński and Markus Werba. With the magnificent acoustic of the house, and its experienced orchestra and chorus, both casts should provide evenings of bel canto thrills. Stefano Ranzani conducts Lorenzo Mariani’s staging, imported from Genova.

Salome, Teatro Regio Torino, April 2027.

April appears to be the month for Salome and this new production at the Teatro Regio Torino is offering a luxury cast. Italian orchestras excel in German opera, and the Turin orchestra is a particularly fine one, here under the direction of Axel Kober. Johanni Van Oostrum takes on the demanding title role, alongside Gábor Bretz as Jochanaan. Jennifer Larmore and John Daszak incarnate the Herods. The stage direction is confided to Kornél Mundruczó whose vision of the work, imported from Geneva, certainly promises to be intriguing.

Tristan und Isolde, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, May 2027.

The Maggio orchestra is one of the finest in the Italian Republic and this opportunity to hear them in Wagner’s intoxicating score is an unmissable one. The house has cast the run with experienced Wagnerians, led by Simon O’Neill and Anja Kampe in the title roles. They will be joined by Okka von der Damerau, Iain Paterson and Brindley Sherratt. Similarly, with the musical direction confided to Alexander Soddy, the evening will certainly be in safe and experienced hands. The staging is by Keith Warner, one of those names one often sees, although I find it hard to recall what I might have seen by him.

Tannhäuser, Teatro Real, May 2027.

This new production of Tannhäuser at the Teatro Real promises to be set in a science-fiction, post-apocalyptic universe, which is certainly an absorbing prospect. This is a common theme in David Hermann’s work, and I’m keen to see how he makes it work with an opera that focuses on religious piety and sexual liberation. As always, the casting at the Teatro Real is extremely luxurious. We have Andreas Schager and Clay Hilley in the title role, Ludovic Tézier and Andrè Schuen as Wolfram, Malin Byström and Elisabeth Teige as Elisabeth, and Aušrinė Stundytė and Irene Roberts as Venus. Gustavo Gimeno conducts.

Götterdämmerung, Bayerische Staatsoper, June – July 2027.

Tobias Kratzer’s Ring cycle in Munich has so far been one of the most compelling cycles of the past few decades. He’s imagined the work as a

Polymyalgia Rheumatica

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:46:54 +0000

Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) is an inflammatory disorder that occurs almost entirely in people over the age of 50. Its name is somewhat misleading: although it literally means “rheumatic pain in many muscles,” the muscles themselves are not primarily diseased. Much of the inflammation appears to involve structures around the joints, including bursae and tendons, particularly around the shoulders and hips.

The illness can begin abruptly. A person who has been well may develop severe aching and stiffness in both shoulders, the neck, hips, or thighs over a period of days, or occasionally overnight. Morning stiffness is especially characteristic and may make such ordinary activities as getting out of bed, putting on a shirt, rising from a chair, or getting into a car difficult. Symptoms often improve as the day progresses, only to return after prolonged inactivity.

There is no test specific to PMR. The diagnosis rests on the characteristic symptoms, the patient’s age, physical examination, and laboratory evidence of inflammation. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) are usually elevated, though they are not invariably so. Other illnesses – particularly rheumatoid arthritis, infections, malignancy, and several other inflammatory disorders – may produce a similar picture.

One of the striking features of PMR is its response to glucocorticoids, usually prednisone. Relatively modest doses often produce dramatic improvement within a few days. Steroids are then gradually reduced, or tapered. The difficulty is that the disease frequently returns as prednisone is reduced, and some patients require treatment for several years. Prolonged steroid therapy is itself troublesome, particularly in older people. It may cause osteoporosis and fractures, hypertension, diabetes, cataracts, weight gain, skin thinning, and an increased susceptibility to infection.

An important associated condition is giant-cell arteritis (GCA), an inflammation of medium- and large-sized arteries that can occur in patients with PMR. A new persistent headache, pain in the jaw while chewing, or especially a change in vision requires prompt medical attention. Untreated GCA can suddenly and permanently damage eyesight or cause a stroke. Roughly 40% to 50% of people with GCA also suffer from PMR.

For decades, prednisone has been the standard treatment of PMR. A therapeutic challenge has been to find drugs that control the inflammation while reducing the amount and duration of steroid treatment. Methotrexate is sometimes used for this purpose. More recently, biologic agents targeting specific components of the immune system have emerged. Sarilumab, which blocks the interleukin-6 receptor, is FDA-approved for adults with PMR who have responded inadequately to corticosteroids or cannot tolerate a steroid taper.

PMR is generally very responsive to treatment and does not ordinarily destroy joints or muscles. Yet relapse is common, and prolonged treatment with the glucocorticoids traditionally used to control it can itself cause substantial morbidity. The search for effective steroid-sparing therapy is consequently one of the most important efforts in the management of PMR.

A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Phase 3 Trial of Secukinumab in Polymyalgia Rheumatica, studied 381 patients with recently relapsed PMR. They received a weekly dose of 300 mg of secukinumab, 150 mg of secukinumab, or placebo over 52 weeks. Secukinumab blocks interleukin-17A, a different inflammatory pathway from the IL-6 pathway blocked by sarilumab. All three groups underwent the same 24-week prednisone taper. Sustained remission at one year occurred in 41.2% with 300 mg, 40.6% with 150 mg, and only 20.4% with placebo. Thus, adding secukinumab approximately doubled the probability of remaining in remission through the year. Both comparisons were highly statistically significant.

Secukinumab also reduced steroid exposure. Mean adjusted cumulative glucocorticoid use was about 1604 mg with 300 mg secukinumab and 1683 mg with 150 mg, compared with 2093 mg in the placebo group – a reduction of roughly 20–23%. The investigators also found less measured glucocorticoid toxicity, less fatigue, and better physical function in the treated patients.

The two secukinumab doses performed almost identically. The trial does not prove that 150 mg and 300 mg are therapeutically equivalent; it was not designed primarily to establish that, but it suggests that doubling the dose will not double the benefit. That will be important when an eventual dose is selected for clinical use.

The trial should not be interpreted as showing that every patient with PMR ought to receive secukinumab. The patients studied had already relapsed while being treated with prednisone. The results therefore apply most directly to patients with relapsing PMR despite glucocorticoid treatment. Nor does the study tell us whether secukinumab is better than sarilumab, the biologic already FDA-approved for patients with an inadequate response to corticosteroids or who cannot tolerate a corticosteroid taper. There was no head-to-head comparison. Sarilumab is FDA- approved for PMR, while secukinumab has yet to gain FDA approval.

There are several other qualifications. Follow-up extended only to one year, so we do not know whether the advantage persists after secukinumab is stopped. More placebo patients discontinued treatment, potentially making some safety comparisons less certain. Overall, serious adverse-event rates were similar among the three groups, although nasopharyngitis, urinary tract infections, fungal infections, and hypersensitivity reactions were more frequent with secukinumab. There was also one death from cryptococcal meningitis in the 150-mg group that the investigator regarded as potentially related to secukinumab, although that patient had additional risk factors, including prolonged previous glucocorticoid exposure.

Perhaps the most striking observation in the paper is that fewer than half the patients achieved a sustained remission at one year. The improvement from about 20% to about 41% is clinically meaningful, but PMR has by no means been solved.

The etiology of polymyalgia rheumatica remains unknown, but its pathogenesis is becoming much clearer. Current thinking is that PMR results from an age-dependent dysregulation of the immune system in a genetically susceptible person, possibly initiated by an environmental stimulus. There is no single demonstrated cause.

The paper discussed above is available below.

Phase 3 Trial of Secukinumab in Polymyalgia Rheumatica

The Metropolitan Opera Archives

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:11:36 +0000

The performance history (1883-1985) of the Met was compiled in print and released in the massive Annals of the Metropolitan Opera in 1989. It was published in two volumes. The first was Chronology 1883-1985, while the second was Tables 1883-1985. I had a copy of the print edition that I used frequently. In 2005 the Met put the searchable Met Opera Database online, using the BiblioTech/Inmagic system.

That online database was decidedly old-fashioned software by today’s standards, but it was extremely good at the sort of relational searching an opera researcher wants to do: performer + opera + role + date range, with each additional criterion narrowing the existing result. It was free. I found it very easy to use. It was far better than any other online opera archive that I searched.

In May 2016, the company Access Innovations publicly announced that it had been hired by the Metropolitan Opera to redesign the Met archive database. They said that although the Met’s data were comprehensive, the database needed to be modernized to provide better search functionality for opera fans and researchers. They planned a new custom XML schema intended to make such things as operas, performers, roles, and performance locations searchable. The 2016 announcement establishes that modernization and improved searching were explicitly among the objectives.

What resulted was the opposite of what was intended. The new archives are buggy and very difficult to use. For example, when I put a singer’s name in and then refined the results by asking how many times he’s sung the title role in Gounod’s Faust, it listed every performance of Faust in the Met’s history. The previous Archives did exactly what was asked of it. There are ways to get around this problem, but they are not intuitive and are user-unfriendly. The data themselves appear to be intact. The problem is largely the query interface and the way successive filters are combined.

There was another problem that could easily have been avoided. If you want to know the names of the production team, you have to go to the first performance of that production. Under the old system, the production team was listed for every performance of that production. Take the Met’s 2008 production of Doctor Atomic. The first performance, October 13, 2008, is marked “New Production,” and the search result identifies production personnel such as Penny Woolcock, Brian MacDevitt, Andrew Dawson, and Mark Grimmer. But open the very next performance, October 18, and the page lists the cast and conductor but not the production team at all. If you are searching for the production team for a production that was first staged years ago, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time trying to find the team that created it.

The same thing occurs with Satyagraha. The first performance on April 11, 2008, identifies Phelim McDermott, Julian Crouch, Kevin Pollard, Paule Constable, Leo Warner, Mark Grimmer, and 59 Productions among the debuting production personnel. Subsequent performances are listed simply as performances of Satyagraha, without carrying those production credits forward.

This is a poor design decision because production information belongs logically to the production, not just to its premiere performance. If I am looking at Tosca on February 17, 2010, what I want to know is: Who sang? Who conducted? Whose production was this? Who designed the sets, costumes, and lighting?

The fact that the production originally opened three, ten, or twenty years earlier should be irrelevant to the user. The archive plainly has the information necessary to associate a performance with its production-or, at the very least, it should be structured to do so. The interface simply isn’t displaying that information on subsequent performances.

The old archive did exactly the sensible thing: it repeated the production team on every performance belonging to that staging. That saved the researcher from having to determine when the production premiered, navigate backward, sometimes many seasons, and then retrieve the credits there.

It also creates a more serious historical problem. Suppose you are examining a particular performance from 1998. Unless you already know that the production originated in, say, 1987, the present archive gives you no immediately obvious indication that you need to go searching eleven years backward for the designer’s name. A casual researcher could quite reasonably conclude that the information simply isn’t in the database.

The redesign of the Met’s Archives was explicitly undertaken to make searching better. That makes the present problems ironic. The designers clearly understood that this was unusually complicated information. One of them specifically pointed out that you cannot assume an opera has only one librettist or that every Met performance occurred in New York, and said that the database had to accommodate these complexities while making the details searchable.

Yet we have now identified precisely the sorts of relationships that the replacement handles poorly: Singer → opera → role can lose the singer restriction. And: Performance → production → director/designers no longer automatically display the production personnel attached to that staging. Those are not exotic requirements. They are fundamental relationships in an opera-performance database.

The most frustrating aspect of all this is that the information has not disappeared. It is still there. What has deteriorated is the user’s ability to retrieve it intelligently. A redesign undertaken expressly to improve access has instead made some of the most elementary historical questions harder to answer. After nearly a decade, the Met should fix it. The financially challenged Met likely spent a lot of money to convert an online archive that was working well into one that was poorer than its earlier iteration.

More on the Met’s Problems

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:40:43 +0000

In this post and the one to follow, I will discuss two problems that are characteristic of the difficulties that have accumulated to the point where the continued existence of one of America’s cultural treasures is threatened or at least seriously challenged. One, the subject of this discussion, is beyond the control of the company. The one to come is entirely the Met’s fault.

Basically, there are two reasons people are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to attend an opera performance. The first is the opera itself; the second is the opportunity to hear a familiar work performed by a singer of exceptional ability. Since the death of Puccini in 1924, with very few exceptions, there have been virtually no new operas that excite an audience the way La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, or Der Rosenkavalier do. Thus, what brings people back to the theater to see an opera they have seen and heard before is the chance to see and hear a familiar role sung by a great artist. When, for whatever reason, an opera is staged with a competent cast but one lacking in star power, the incentive to spend a considerable sum on an opera ticket is greatly reduced, especially when the variety of entertainment options is as great as it is today.

Consider two time intervals that I personally have experienced, the first in what now seems the distant past. My first opera at the Met was Tosca on December 25, 1954, with Licia Albanese, Eugene Conley, who replaced an indisposed Jan Peerce, and George London in the principal roles. I managed to scrape together enough money to buy a seat in the Grand Tier. Thereafter, I was a regular standee at the Met, often standing through three or four performances a week. Standing room was $2 a ticket. If one or more star performers were singing you had to get on line three to four hours before the performance to be sure of gaining entrance. Two dollars was a lot of money to me back then. I used to hope for the day when I could afford to buy a seat. This regular attendance continued until the end of the 1960-61 season, after which I left the New York area and returned to the Met only during visits to my native city.

Here’s a list of some of the sopranos and tenors I heard at the Met before I was 25 years old. The list would be just as impressive if I included the other vocal ranges. I’ll start with the sopranos. They are presented in no order other than as they occurred to me.

Zinka Milanov
Maria Callas
Renata Tebaldi
Birgit Nilsson
Leontyne Price
Victoria de los Angeles
Leonie Rysanek
Lisa Della Casa
Eileen Farrell
Licia Albanese
Roberta Peters
Antonietta Stella
Anna Moffo

Now the tenors in the same random order.

Jussi Björling
Giuseppe Di Stefano
Richard Tucker
Mario del Monaco
Franco Corelli
Carlo Bergonzi
Jon Vickers
Nicolai Gedda
Jan Peerce
Cesare Valletti

There are two points to be made from the above lists. First, I was lucky enough to attend the Met when the company was full of great voices. While it was nice to have a great staging such as the 1958 Japanese-led production of Madama Butterfly with Antonietta Stella in the title role, the presence of so many extraordinary voices was enough to fill the house on a routine basis. The second is that today’s opera scene is particularly fallow. There is nothing today like the profusion of great singers represented by the two lists above.

This absence of greatness explains, to a large degree, the problem confronting the Met. The company stages new operas that the public doesn’t want to hear more than once. When they present standard works, almost all of which are a century or more old, they lack the star power needed to attract an audience willing to pay hundreds of dollars a ticket. I’m not saying the Met doesn’t have a lot of fine singers; they just don’t have the star power of two generations ago. There’s nothing the company can do to overcome this deficit. It is a victim of changing times.

Tchaikovsky: Child of Glass, Not Entirely Serious, 13 August 2026

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:22:28 +0000

Opera Holland Park

Tama Matheson (director, actor)
Jayson Gillham (music director, piano)
Stephen Wicks (assistant director, choreography)
Suzy Kohane, Oliver Holland (actors)
Téo Debreuil (ballet soloist)

On the hottest day of the year, Opera Holland Park turned from its own season to the period in which it generously permits use of its theatre to other, smaller companies and events. The first, following on from last year’s Beethoven: I Shall Hear You in Heaven, was Not Entirely Serious’s Tchaikovsky: Child of Glass. Reuniting co-producers Tama Matheson and Jayson Gillham and actors Suzy Kohane and Oliver Holland, Matheson and Gillham tripling and doubling as writer/director and pianist/music director respectively, the new play welcomed Royal Ballet soloist Téo Dubreuil to the team, with impressive, often moving results.

Tchaikovsky’s life presents, of course, a very different story from Beethoven’s, but both, like many others, have clear narrative arcs, the latter with undeniable tragic elements, the former an undeniable tragedy. (I found this writing another composer biography, that of Schoenberg: how well a life structures its works, at least in certain cases.) Here the emphasis naturally lies on the composer’s homosexuality and broader queerness, Tchaikovsky initially appearing onstage in a dress, only to lose and never regain it. There are other stories to tell, no doubt, but in a general ‘bio-play’, it would be perverse to ignore this as guiding principle. Russian culture ministers, should they still exist, may beg to differ. Across today’s world, an increasingly ominous space for LGBTQ+ people, and not least in a United Kingdom in which Rowling & Co. seem to call most of the legal shots, we hardly need reminding of how fragile acceptance can be, of how distant liberation remains.

Matheson brings to onstage portrayal of the composer the same energy and commitment shown not only in his writing but also his general animating presence. Put simply, this would not be happening without him—though it is no one-man show. In narration and dialogue, there is a readiness to recapture, even in necessary translation, the different style and voice of Tchaikovsky’s age. A good deal of basic – and sometimes less basic – biographical information is conveyed: perhaps some time a little too much, although the balance is difficult to strike. The outlines, however, as well as telling detail are very much present, as indeed they are in the contributions of his fellow actors, called upon to summon up a chorus of portrayals (literally in the ‘court of honour’ some have claimed drove Tchaikovsky to his death). I mean no disrespect to writer or actors, though, when I say that it is elements of music and dance that linger longer and hit deeper. Such, after all is their nature—arguably in general, but certainly in the life in question, its agonies as clearly as any sublimated into art. Gillham’s pianism, crystalline, scintillating, seductive and more, guides us through a distinguished tasting-menu of Tchaikovsky and others (Rachmaninov, Mozart, Bizet, Wagner, Saint-Saëns), original piano music (solo or concerto) and arrangements delivered with equal ease and magic. The ‘Bacchanale’ from Samson et Dalila puts in an apt, orientalist appearance for a scene in Paris, in which the composer succumbs once again to the sins and liberation of metropolitan flesh. Here, Debreuil’s personification of Tchaikovsky’s urges, his dreams, and ultimately, even in death, his hopes truly commands the stage. His is a part lying somewhat in the line of Tadzio (Britten’s more than Visconti’s—or Mann’s): more knowing, perhaps, yet also crucially beyond good and evil.

NYO/Adès - Liszt, Adès, and Berlioz, 8 August 2026

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 11:13:12 +0000

Royal Albert Hall

Liszt: Mephisto Waltz no.1, S.110/2
Adès: Dante: Part 2, ‘Purgatorio’
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, op.14

National Youth Orchestra

Thomas Adès (conductor)

Images: BBC / Chris Christodoulou

To hear the National Youth Orchestra is always a treat. The enthusiasm of young musicians, not a cynical bone in their bodies, can hardly be gainsaid; but enthusiasm will only get one so far. These musicians have technical and musical capabilities beyond their years; many will have professional careers ahead of them. Just look at the NYO’s alumni. They will have many more rehearsals than a professional orchestra could every hope for. (Eat your heart out, Celibidache!) There is also the sheer joy of hearing an orchestra of this size too, again unaffordable on the professional scene for almost anything but Gurrelieder—and often not even then. Berlioz knew a true orchestral pianissimo required a far greater body of musicians than one was ever likely to hear, rendering his works either utopian or unperformable or, on some measure, inadequately performed in reality. What we hear today from ‘period’ and ‘modern’ orchestras alike, whatever the ideological claims of the latter, will almost always fall short of what he required. Such is life, at least under capitalism. We stretch our resources to breaking-point and beyond, and ultimately make do with less than perfection; otherwise, we should hear nothing at all. It was nonetheless a treat to hear the Symphonie fantastique played with musicians within the range of his expectation, if still towards the lower end (albeit with more powerful, modern instruments).

Before that, the first half of this concert conducted by Thomas Adès offered music by Liszt and Adès himself. The greatest musical avant-gardist of the nineteenth century, Liszt was stranger neither to ideas nor to practice in the realm of musical ‘progress’: neither on the piano nor the orchestra, inventing for the latter the new genre of the symphonic poem. So important were they to Wagner that he actually played down some of his own prior innovation, here strictly preceding that of Liszt, so as to incorporate Liszt’s poems into his musico-historical schema. The first Mephisto Waltz has a not dissimilar conception, reminding us that there were orchestral works before Liszt, as there have been many after, that may not strictly be classified in that way, but which at least come close. (Ask Berlioz, for one.) No one writes – plays, listens – in a vacuum. Coming to this music for the first time or the hundredth – the latter unlikely, for we hear it far less often than we might – no one would have failed to register the NYO’s musical, indeed human energy from the conductor’s first downbeat, indeed before that too. Unanimity of sound, but also of purpose, reached through collaboration rather than dictatorship, was apparent here and throughout the entire concert, whether in the opening phrase or the whirlwind that ensued, string crescendi a remarkable case in point (more difficult than they might sound). It was quite a ride for all of us. Handling the sudden change of tempo for the love music is a difficult task: how to ensure necessary contrast but also ‘symphonic’ continuity. If Adès proved stronger in the former than the latter, there was nonetheless much to admire and be thrilled by—especially in the return to full throttle. Moreover, all orchestral solos were taken exquisitely (again, very much the case throughout the concert).

Adès’s ballet Dante was written for the Royal Opera House and Opéra de Paris for the septcentenary of Dante’s birth. Here we heard the second of its three parts, ‘Purgatorio’. Its performance seemed once again to be outstanding, NYO musicians clearly relishing the opportunity to work with a composer on his music, in a performance it is difficult to imagine being surpassed. I felt decidedly ambivalent to it as music, though, a promising opening leading to outright bathos. The first six of its seven sections contains recorded material: baqashot chants, as revealed in Edward Venn’s useful note, connecting both with the composer’s family history and themes in Dante. They were fascinating to hear, as was, at the music’s best, their incitement to and/or emergence from orchestral material, be it for solo instruments, groups, or something approaching a full ensemble. I am not sure the writing always escapes orientalism, arguably all the more pronounced in frequent combination – almost as if we had not progressed from Saint-Saëns – of tonality and ‘fantastic’, ‘Oriental’ colouring. The microtones of the ‘real thing’ had considerably more intrinsic character. Despite the tendency towards film music, one could imagine it danced—and that was of course part of the point.

There were certainly thrills to be heard when we reached the final ‘Ascent’ in ten horns or five trombones standing together to play. When joined by bells, though, the score ended up sounding uncomfortably close to a television ‘Christmas special’. It made a noise, as did the orchestra, but beyond that? Wagner advised Liszt not to write a ‘Paradiso’ movement for his Dante Symphony, declaring depiction of paradise beyond the powers of music: advice Liszt wisely heeded, substituting a ‘Magnificat’. Given the nature of this musical approach, I think I shall similarly refrain as listener. Whatever my misgivings, a poorly-behaved audience – slurping ice cream, dropping things on the floor, taking phone calls, air conducting, and more – loved it.

And so, to Berlioz, gifts of conductor and orchestra united in a performance that threatened to raise the roof even of the Albert Hall, yet lacked nothing in subtle detail. The first movement received as fine a performance as I can recall for a long time, its introduction barely registering as such, but rather as one stage, full of potential yet equally absorbing on its own terms, in an ever-developing, shortish symphonic poem of its own. NYO energy could be experienced as coming direct not only from the players but their instruments: testimony to Adès’s wise stewardship in pursuit of Berlioz’s goals. I was especially intrigued by the darker corners, timbre, harmony, tempo, and more united in production of colour and motion. All manner of shades between them and the composer’s signature manic Romanticism made for another captivating journey, as did a graceful, yet at-times-menacing second-movement ball, here given with cornet solo. (Truth be told, I prefer it without, but in this context, it would have been idiocy not to give the soloist his moment to shine, as he certainly did.)

Once the ballroom had been brought to eyes and ears, the ‘Scène aux champs’ unfolded with every bit as keen a sense of musical narration. Excellent use was made of the Albert Hall; in veritable coups de théâtre, both oboe echo of cor anglais solo (excellent in both cases) and thunder-drums above in stereo with their siblings below made fine use of the gallery. Berlioz would have loved the spatial drama, as, I am sure, he would the Beethoven rarely more than a little below the surface, underpinning the movement’s structure. The darker timbres of the ‘March to the Scaffold’ echoed and extended the aforementioned corners in the first movement, lugubrious and extravert twin sides to the same fateful coin. If ever you had wanted to experience the sound of eight bassoons standing from within an orchestra, here was your opportunity. That was not in itself the point, but rather what was done with them—which proved to be of equal excellence.

A duly rollicking finale combined narrative and musical coherence to the extent that it would have been inconceivable to divide them. As black sabbath bells pealed from the gallery, witches and skeletons came to life and partied below. Coordination was no mean task in itself; bar one slightly precarious moment, quickly salvaged, there was no problem at all. The chase to the close, full of incident, imparted a properly Gothic thrill in this monstrous hall. If it were no surprise to be treated to an encore, the choice of music perhaps was: a darkly sensual John Barry ‘Space March’ from the score to You Only Live Twice. Now that is how you do film music.

Oberon, Proms, 6 August 2026

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 11:22:47 +0000

Royal Albert Hall

Oberon – Nicky Spence
Reiza – Jennifer Davis
Sir Huon – John Findon
Sherasmin – Yannick Debus
Fatima – Rachael Wilson
Puck – J’Nai Bridges
Mermaids – Charlotte Bowden, Jessica Cale

Narrator – Tamsin Greig
Emma Doherty (stage director)

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Monteverdi Choir (chorus-master: Richard Wilberforce)
Mark Elder (conductor)

What to do with Oberon? Staging it ‘as is’ – or ‘was’ – is barely an option, though it would be far from without interest for those of us who care deeply about its music. Even if we resolved, as well we might, never to see it again like that, we should have gained a greater sense of its conception. The problem lies squarely with James Robinson Planché’s English libretto for Covent Garden, a product of taste (or lack thereof) and time rather than straightforward incompetence, and in its way an object of fascination, yet hardly enough for someone to take the plunge. It lies of course more broadly with the state of English opera at the time. Even if we were to avoid value judgements, taste and expectation are so utterly removed from ours – far more so than, say, eighteenth-century opera seria at the height of its alienation from a Romantically inclined public – that it will not happen.

Value judgement, moreover, is pretty much impossible to avoid in this case. However much I may attempt to resist temptation – in truth, not so very much – I shall eventually end up quoting Donald Tovey, so may as well do so here. For this strange spin-off from Wieland and Shakespeare, perhaps lost in translation yet also at least a window on a Romantic window on traditions and conceptions that are not ours, Weber ‘poured his last and finest music into this pig-trough’. Or as Clive Brown, only a little more diplomatically, wrote in the New Grove: ‘It is a remarkable testimony to Weber’s operatic genius that, notwithstanding the unmitigated awfulness of its libretto, Oberon has maintained a toe-hold in the repertory. To a very considerable extent he was able to compensate for triviality and inconsequence in the libretto by skilful musical treatment.’ It is not simply the quality of the libretto, though, but the nature of the ‘work’ to which the composer was obliged to contribute. In the words of him who, advancing consumption notwithstanding, had hurriedly and with marked success learned his English lessons in order to provide for his family: ‘The intermixing of so many principal actors who do not sing, the omission of the music in the most important moments – all these things deprive our Oberon the title of an opera, and will make him unfit for all other Theatres in Europe; which is a very bad thing for me, but – passons la dessus.’

So, what to do? Or rather, what was done here in this semi-staging – perhaps closer to ‘concert staging’, though the boundaries are as porous as for opera, semi-opera, Singspiel, etc. – from the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (here in Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique guise)? In a resourceful conception of its own, brought to the Proms rather than conceived by it, the orchestra formed the centre-piece around which Emma Doherty’s direction of the singers took place. Oberon’s horn, seen and heard first from the organ loft, later from its own solo spot onstage, rightly took its place as fons et origo of the action. There was a good deal of activity, running- on and offstage and even, in one case for Sir Huon and Sherasmin, lost en route to rescue Reiza, on the arena. The fate of near-eternal gardening prior to reunion of our pairs of lovers, was illustrated with watering cans and so on. It did not take itself too seriously, but nor did it merely send things up or wallow in self-regard.

Would that I might say the same for Timothy Knapman’s new English narration, replacing Planché’s dialogue. It was not his fault that many characters simply disappeared from the stage; imagine, say, an Entführung without Bassa Selim. Nor was it necessarily a bad idea to condense those aspects of the action into verse narration. The all-too-obvious quotations from Shakespeare, forced rhymes – readily amused members of the audience laughing some time before their delivery on account of surtitle pre-emption – and general air of facetiousness quickly grew wearing. True, something had to substitute for what would – should – have been theatrical spectacle. It would have been lovely to have had some of that, in some sense reimagined, but that was never on the cards. But there is a line between not taking oneself too seriously and not taking anything seriously at all. One might have been tempted to ask: why bother at all?

Fortunately, Weber and his performers prevented one asking that, and ensured audience gratitude for what is, after all, a rare opportunity. (Covent Garden was due to stage the work a few years ago, but unceremoniously withdrew. My sole previous live encounter was an enterprising performance from New Sussex Opera in 2014.) Bar a couple of highly noticeable occasions when string tuning went horribly awry, the ORR played beautifully. Under Mark Elder’s guidance, the orchestra had none of the inflexibility and astringency forced upon it – and us – by its founding conductor, departed to fight (literally) other battles elsewhere. Accustomed to modern instruments, my ears took a little time to adjust, but Elder and the orchestra brought a lovely intimacy to musical proceedings, feather-light, gossamer intimations of Mendelssohn, equally germane recollections of The Magic Flute and Die Entführung, and more than occasional foreshadowings of Wagner all part of a rich historical mix nonetheless centred upon Weber’s particularity. It was arguably a little too introspective at times, a little too loved by Elder; but if so, that was a fault in the right direction. For herein lay genuine love for the opera less in evidence from narrative condescension.

This was, moreover, a performance in the best sense considerate to a fine cast of singers that was yet not, for the most part, Wagnerian as we understand the term. As Oberon, at least in this version, Nicky Spence has relatively little to do, but did it well—and with undeniable sense of theatre. His fellow tenor John Findon had considerably more on his plate as Sir Huon of Bordeaux, and rose to Weber’s challenges with winning ease. So too did Jennifer Davis, of course very much a Wagnerian, in the parallel role of Reiza. Both gave spirited and subtle performances that made the most of the dramatic opportunities this particular brand of staging could provide. Much the same might be said of the ‘lesser’ couple – think Papageno and Papagena, albeit with greater balance in their minutes of music – of Yannick Debus as Sherasmin and Rachael Wilson as Fatima: both animated, and stylish throughout, Wilson offering a touching, lovelorn ‘A lonely Arab maid’. With a lovely mermaid duet (Charlotte Bowden and Jessica Cale), all the more bewildering without much in the way of context, a spirited J’Nai Bridges as Puck, and a fine collection of soloists in their own right from the Monteverdi Chori, the score and some at least of its context were brought vividly to life. Tamsin Greig, moreover, delivered her narration with collaborative ease and the keenest ear for verse. As in any ‘version’ of the work, content was not the responsibility of the performers.

Had Weber lived to return to Germany, he would almost certainly have revised the opera for its stages, introducing recitative and doing away with some of its more problematic aspects. (Hearing it in German translation, however inauthentic on a literalist level, is in aesthetic terms a great improvement.) Maybe some day, someone will offer us Planché’s 1860 revision in Italian (by then, more to the taste of opera-going London). Mahler’s version, which I have never heard in the theatre, probably offers the best way forward in German, treating us not only to the revision of one of the opera house’s greatest animating forces, but also to Mahler’s own extension of Weber’s material for transitional music. But there are worse things than a work that confounds possibilities for performance. (So too, in different ways, do many others—Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron included.) This was a valiant attempt, offering a proper degree of bewitchment. Now where is Euryanthe?

Bayreuth Festival (4) - Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, 28 and 30 July, 1 August 2026

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:21:03 +0000

Festspielhaus

Siegmund, Siegfried – Klaus Florian Vogt
Sieglinde – Elza van den Heever
Hunding, Hagen – Mika Kares
Wotan – Michael Volle
Fricka, First Norn – Anna Kissjudit
Brünnhilde – Camilla Nylund
Siegrune, Second Norn, Gutrune – Alexandra Ionis
Rossweiße, Wellgunde – Natalia Skrycka
Grimgerde, Floßhilde – Marie Henriette Reinhold
Helmwige, Third Norn – Magdalena Hinterdobler
Gerhilde – Martina Weischenbach
Ortlinde – Brit-Tone Müllertz
Waltraute – Karis Tucker (Walküre), Anna Kissjudit (Götterdämmerung)
Schwertleite – Freya Apffelstaedt
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Alberich – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Fafner – Peter Rose
Woodbird – Victoria Randem
Erda – Christa Mayer
Gunther – Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Woglinde – Katherina Konradi

Curator – Marcus Lobbes
Artistic and technical conception – Marcus Lobbes, Nils Corte
Dramaturgy – Andri Hardmeier
Digital- and AI-storytelling – Roman Senkl
Creative code, visual art – Nils Corte, Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger
Set design – Wolf Gutjahr
Costumes – Pia Maria Mackert

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus director: Thomas Eitler-de Lint)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Images: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

‘Auf geb’ich mein Werk: nur Eines will ich noch: das Ende – das Ende!‘ When, in bitter disillusionment, in his great monologue from the second act of Die Walküre, Wotan offers Alberich – absent from the stage, yet present in words, orchestra, and our thoughts – the world he had once striven so hard to retain, now desiring one thing alone, the end, he spoke for all of us. Michael Volle delivered the line with characteristic intelligence and artistry. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra ‘spoke’ with equivalent excellence as Wagner’s Attic chorus. Goodness knows what happened or did not onstage. I cannot recall and I doubt anyone else can; the likelihood of anyone having cared is still lower. Maybe it happened at one of the times I experimented by closing my eyes or wearing a newly acquired sleeping mask from a Bayreuth branch of Rossmann. (Tentative conclusion: may help relieve symptoms for a short period, but consult a musicodramatic physician should symptoms persist, as alas they did.) The truth, alas, is that most of us had willed that end far sooner, from about a minute or two into the first Rheingold screen-saver foisted on us by ‘curator’ Marcus Lobbes. His recorded utterances suggest barely the slightest acquaintance with the Ring, let alone what it might mean, but such knowledge is doubtless to be disdained in a braver new world than Aldous Huxley might ever have imagined.

In a sense, there is little else to write, yet somehow, like the pilgrims who returned night after night, more in expectation than in hope, I should make the attempt. What did we learn? That the ‘machine’, the ‘intelligence’, the ‘prompter’ – whatever we wish to call it/him/whatever – was never happier than when covering singers with red, which contrasted with brown, to merge in a sickly terracotta, only to be eclipsed by yellow? That the bizarre ‘historical’ pictures could indeed get worse? The Prologue and first Act of Götterdämmerung took us not very far, from Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan to Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton, the latter understandably covering his face. That whoever/whatever was signally incapable of aligning past production images, all still in terrible resolution, with what was going on, so that Frank Castorf’s legendary alternative Mount Rushmore appeared only when it should not in Siegfried, and that, staggeringly, Patrice Chéreau’s still more legendary Immolation Scene, Dame Gwyneth and all, appeared first in the wrong scene with Brünnhilde? What on earth the advent of the euro was doing there, I refuse even to speculate. We cannot or, better, should not be expected to do the work for these machines. We are not Alberich’s enslaved Nibelungs; or rather, we are, but must free ourselves. Not that we saw them anyway—and the chorus, when it appeared, was denied costumes and indeed visibility. An unfortunate moment of mislighting, were that a word, nonetheless revealed the arrival of its female contingent. The ‘cage’ of screens, front and back, could not function on its own terms, let alone ours.

Occasionally what we saw just about aspired to the level of a mid-price greeting card image; near-aspiration consistently failed to elevate itself into achievement. The obscenity of randomly posting a picture of what appeared to be starving Africans, presumably as a result of a colonial atrocity, as something to gaze at for a few seconds, then having it ‘transform’ into some meaningless shapes, whilst Siegmund and Sieglinde voice their increasing love – and lust – for one another should in itself have been enough to take this idiocy off the stage. That Walküre ‘moment’ fell, if I remember correctly, somewhere between sightings of Thomas Mann (at the right time for Wälsungenblut, though apparently not intended as such) and a pair of keyholes; Lenin and Hitler remained some way off. Who knows? Who cares? Actually, many might care about suddenly being presented with an unmotivated, uncalled-for giant image of Hitler impressed upon them in the Festspielhaus. Where is the obligation to them? A concert performance would have been infinitely preferable; so too would even the worst of stagings.

Someone should have pulled the plug, literally, before this debacle had begun, leaving us with what would doubtless have been a fine concert performance. It might well have been a disappointment, but it would not have been a catastrophe. It would have spared some of the ‘AI’ environmental footprint too, as our own World-Ashes not only wither but blaze across the world. Home to Wagner’s endearing encounter with Jessie Laussot, Bordeaux has endured more temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius this unfinished year alone than it has over the preceding century-and-a-bit during which records were kept. Soon not only revolutionary composers will be expelled; not only the vines whose fruits Jessie’s husband traded on will wither; the city itself may fall. The end approaches and it does not look pretty; nor does it seem likely to cleanse us and the world Musk, Trump, Lobbes, and others have despoiled. Mention of sustainable theatre, sustainable anything else, or indeed any sort of theatre, let alone drama, now raises little more than a shrug. We are all apparently just to destroy our eyes, ears, minds, and souls sitting in front of screens waiting like the gods in Waltraute’s heartrending plea to Waltraute—or what would have been, had it not similarly been obliterated by further image-bombardment. Say what you like about the US occupation forces when they turned the Festspielhaus into a venue for musicals and other entertainments; they never conceived of such an indignity on Wagner’s house, work, performers, and audience, let alone put it into practice.

Again, I shall need to be brief about the performances, since I found it well-nigh impossible to concentrate upon them. Bar a very few inevitable slips, the orchestra continued to play brilliantly for Thielemann, despite its relegation to soundtrack for whatever it was we were compelled to view. Silken strings that darkened on demand; sensuous yet spirited woodwind; brass that rang with the hallowed tones, yet none of the complacency, of altdeutsch tradition: from this palette our necromancer-in-chief painted a series of epics to my ears closer to Strauss (and even at times Debussy) than the Bayreuth Wagner of old, yet certainly with tales to tell. These were aesthetic decisions rather than omissions; this was made clear at points of the highest dramatic tension in Act I of Die Walküre, when suddenly Thielemann shifted to an almost Klemperer- or Barenboim-like focus on growling, foundational harmony, the parallel gear-shift in tempo audible yet convincing. There was often a chamber-music line less in the line of Karajan than beyond him; at least, I discerned it from time to time when the images would permit me to listen.

The singers were, of course, still more poorly served—some might say unforgivably so. This may seem an absurdly first-level question for a production, but did our ‘curators’ for one minute consider the implications for the outstanding, hard-working vocal artists placed at their disposal? Either they did and utterly failed in another basic task, or they did not and were thereby negligent. Volle’s class shone through nevertheless, if only sporadically, as did that of everyone else. Perhaps I might have been more critical in other circumstances, but Klaus Florian Vogt’s follow-ups to his excellent Mime, taking in both Siegmund and Siegfried – surely a record? – offered insight throughout and only occasional tiring. He acted too, bringing far more to the stage than a thousand screen-savers might ever: not only in his own dramatic presence, but in engagement with others. If Mika Kares did not quite manage such a feat, our Daland and Fasolt excelled also as Hunding and Hagen. Here is a first-rate artist, readily adaptable, without threat to lyricism, verbal meaning, or their musicodramatic union. Anna Kissjudit stood out to me similarly as Fricka and the First Norn. Her sister Norns, their sister Rhinemaindens, and indeed their sister Valkyries were all excellent as individual voice and ensemble. Camilla Nylund emerged as first among equals, in fiercely committed performances as Brünnhilde in all three of these operas. Far too often, though, these were fleeting rather than sustained impressions, and all on account of the ‘curation’.

This ‘production’, ‘curation’, or whatever one wants to call it is not about ‘AI’; it is not ‘about’ the Culture Industry or capitalism. It denotes and indeed forms part of their logical, lowest-common-denominator, catastrophic conclusion. Of course the Ring, like anything else, cannot preserve itself from the structures of our current existence; nor should it, even if that were possible. By the same token, it should not – must not – merely surrender to them. The Bayreuth Festival was, for sound reasons, founded as a joint stock company. That was not an endorsement of later-nineteenth-century capitalism; it was a decision necessitated by economic furchtbare Not. To complain about that is to plummet to the inanity level of ‘you have an iPhone, so how can you criticise capitalism?’ There was neither call nor need for this aesthetic disaster, surely the worst in the history of the Festival. If any of us hears again of Lobbes in the opera house, it will be too soon, but this is not the fault of a single person, however culpable he and his ‘team’ may be. We are not all guilty, as the cliché has it; guilty indeed, though, are obsession with technology – as ‘bros’ call it, ‘tech’ – and an economic system so ruinous Alberich might have led the revolution against it.

The optimistic view would be that, once this is all done, there will be a chance to start again, echoing Harry Kupfer’s vision of a Ring post-nuclear-apocalypse. That now seems merely utopian, however welcome it was to find occasional relief in Siegfried from poor-quality reproductions of Kupfer’s lasers. Wagner situates hope, at the close of Götterdämmerung, in the survivors, the men and women ‘moved to the very depths of their being’ by what they have witnessed. If we have witnessed nothing and merely been numbed to the ever-narrowing shallows of what remains of our being, will not the fires continue to rage until we are all incinerated? Make a Ring about that and just maybe we can still talk, create, and crucially listen. Otherwise, as a composer-conductor in Wagner’s line, soon to work on the twentieth century’s defining production of the Ring here at Bayreuth, once put it: ‘The most expensive solution would be to blow the opera houses into the air. But do you not think that that might also be the most elegant solution?’

Or, as Wagner, already at work on the Ring project, noted in his diary from revolutionary Dresden almost 120 years earlier: ‘8 May (Monday) Morning once again by roundabout route via barricades to Town Hall. At S. Anne Barricade guard shouts “Well, Mr Conductor, joy’s beautiful divine spark’s made a blaze.” (3rd perf. 9th Symphony at previous Palm Sunday concert; Opera House now burnt down. Strange feeling of comfort.)’ If we do not stop ‘AI’ and the forces behind it, such will soon be all our lot, minus Wagner’s strange feeling and certainly minus redemption, ‘through love’ or anything else. Booing with a fury and unanimity I have never previously encountered ensued: which already returns us, once again, to Wagner and the Dresden uprising. Let us consider this, then, a warning on multiple levels, in the unlikely event it is not too late already.

Bayreuth Festival (3) - Der fliegende Holländer, 29 July 2026

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:51:43 +0000

Festspielhaus

Daland – Mika Kares
Senta – Elisabeth Teige
Erik – Benjamin Bruns
Mary – Nadine Weissmann
Steersman – Kieran Carrel
The Dutchman – Nicholas Brownlee

Director, set designs – Dmitri Tcherniakov

Costumes – Elena Zaytseva
Lighting – Gleb Filshtinsky
Dramaturgy – Tatiana Werestchagina

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus director: Thomas Eitler-de Lint),
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Oksana Lyniv (conductor)

Images: (c) Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrather

Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Dutchman and Dutchman return, still ship-less, to their small town of still smaller horizons for what may or may not be the last time. They have had a good run by recent Bayreuth standards, rightly so, and are not scheduled for next season. (Minus Tristan, all dramas from Rienzi onwards are scheduled either for this season or next.) Whilst there was naturally immense relief all round at an actual theatrical experience amidst the torture-debris of the ‘AI’-Ring debacle, things were looking a little tired, at least until a third act that continues to pack quite a punch. I doubt this was really the fault of anyone concerned, although Tcherniakov presumably did not return to direct this revival, since there was no production team present for curtain calls. Indeed, what we saw had very much the air of a repertory house revival, somewhat at odds with what is held to be the ethos of ‘Werkstatt Bayreuth’, if infinitesimally so when compared to the horrors that had unfolded the previous two nights. (I shall deal with Die Walküre in a single ‘rest of the Ring’ review following its much-awaited Götterdämmerung.)

Providing, as ever, his own set designs, Tcherniakov presents in the Prelude a pantomime in which the young ‘H.’ (Holländer, we presume) sees his mother hanging lifeless from a house window, shamed by a hypocritical, Peter Grimes-like community that had her yield – perhaps as sex worker – to Daland’s advances, only to be cast aside when no longer of use. His adult return is no seven-year ritual in search of an impossible love, but rather pursuit of revenge against the man and more broadly the community that did this. His whole life, one senses, has explicitly led up to this, as he is welcomed by the venal Daland – maybe he continues to run up such expenses? – and later his wife Mary, acted with palpable compassion by Nadine Weismann, as well as by Senta. Invited to dinner, his plan falls into place when, following interesting initial reluctance that has her decline even to come inside, Senta falls for him. The third act shows the community at large, in mirthless corporate celebration for which the Dutchman’s crew (or whatever they be) notably fail to participate. Shots are fired, Daland falling before his daughter, who nonetheless continues to hold faith in H., to be cruelly tossed aside—as surplus to his requirements as his mother had to Senta’s father’s. Daland’s house and wealth ablaze, the entire claustrophobic Nordic townscape at risk, Mary returns to kill the Dutchman. Senta’s highly disconcerting, hysterical turn between grief and celebration is ultimately transformed into compassion for the woman who has long cared for her. Perhaps, then, as we hear the 1860 post-Tristan ‘redemptive’ ending, there is a form of feminist redemption after all. Men have created and perpetuated this world and its revenge saga; if women survive, they can hardly do worse and might, just might, do better.

Oksana Liniv’s conducting remained the weakest link in the evening’s proceedings (from when I last heard it in 2024). It is a pity she could not have been replaced with someone more able and willing to respond to such a dramatic conception, or indeed any other, of the work. If the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra played well enough, it rarely sounded inspired, and one could hardly blame it. Lyniv’s alternation between pressing too hard and listlessly meandering, the latter especially apparent in a second act that seemed much longer than it was, offered a reversion to number opera seemingly not from aesthetic conviction, but because a more music-drama-focused performance could not be sustained. A sudden change of gear to breakneck speed at the close of the spinning chorus had pit and stage fall apart for several bars, the chorus compelled to find its own way back into sync, quite unaided by the conductor.

A further sadness lay in the sound offered by a now reduced chorus, especially at the beginning of the third act. The Festival’s decision to take an axe to what should be one of its crown jewels has regrettably had consequences, notwithstanding the musicianship of those remaining and their new director. In the title role, Nicholas Brownlee had an awkward beginning, intonation surprisingly, repeatedly awry in the first act. He grew into his own, though, to offer a compelling performance later on. Having sung two other challenging roles (Fasolt and Hunding) on two immediately preceding evenings, Mika Kares was undaunted by prospect or reality of Daland, outsinging the Dutchman in the first act and continuing to impress thereafter. Benjamin Bruns and Elisabeth Teige offered an aural, if not necessarily dramatic, glimpse of what a future Siegfried and Brünnhilde might sound like, Bruns impassioned and vocally fearless as Erik, Teige taking all in her musicodramatic stride in a role notorious for its demands. It was heartening too to welcome a fresh-voiced Kieran Carrel from Berlin’s Deutsche Oper to the Green Hill as the Steersman; let us hope this intelligent portrayal will prove neither his last visit nor role here. If I had certain reservations, then, this revival nonetheless proved quite a tonic after the anti-human production horrors of the two preceding evenings.

Bayreuth Festival (2) – Das Rheingold, 27 July 2026

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:01:15 +0000

Festspielhaus

Wotan – Michael Volle
Donner – Alexander Grassauer
Froh – Siyabonga Maqungo
Loge – Klaus Florian Vogt
Fricka – Anna Kissjudit
Freia – Evelyn Novak
Erda – Christa Mayer
Alberich – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Mime – Gerhard Siegel
Fasolt – Mika Kares
Fafner – Peter Rose
Woglinde – Katharina Konradi
Wellgunde – Natalia Skrycka
Flosshilde – Marie Henriette Reinhold

Curator – Marcus Lobbes
Artistic and technical conception – Marcus Lobbes, Nils Corte
Dramaturgy – Andri Hardmeier
Digital- and AI-storytelling – Roman Senkl
Creative code, visual art – Nils Corte, Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger
Set design – Wolf Gutjahr

Costumes – Pia Maria Mackert

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Images (c): Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

The Bayreuth Festival has had a chequered history over its (almost) 150 years to date. It nonetheless remains, or has until now remained, in many ways an object lesson to the rest of the operatic world in how to take art seriously, how to create conditions in which it might be produced and experienced, and much else—not least with respect to the Festspielhaus amphitheatre and covered pit. That the rest of the world has failed almost entirely to heed its example may sadden us, but reflects on that world and us, not on Bayreuth, nor indeed on Wagner. As Pierre Boulez observed, whilst at work here half a century ago on the now legendary ‘Centenary Ring’ with Patrice Chéreau, perhaps with a little exaggeration, if understandably so, Wagner’s ‘diatribes’, written in turn:

… more than a century ago, are still completely relevant, for nothing has changed—the laziness of the repertory theatre, its failings, its precarious functioning, the blind choice of works, the fortuitous casting of singers and players, the lack of rehearsal, the sauve-qui-peut routine. Architecturally speaking, the Bayreuth model has remained a dead letter and we still have Italian-style theatres. … Both visually and acoustically, we continue to witness this permanent defeat of what is truly theatrical, Bayreuth having effected not the slightest improvement.

To strike a slightly less pessimistic note than Boulez, I think Bayreuth has played a notable role in effecting certain theatrical improvements, if more related to staging than stages. That 1976-80 production and numerous others – Ring stagings from Harry Kupfer and Frank Castorf, Tristan from Heiner Müller, Parsifal from Stefan Herheim, Hans Neuenfels’s Lohengrin, Tobias Kratzer’s Tannhäuser, and so on – set standards for and posed challenges to the rest of the world, just as Wagner did, and occasionally, sometimes more than that, they have been taken up, run with, even surpassed. Bayreuth as ‘workshop’ (Werkstatt), the greatest legacy of Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner, created the conditions for such innovation, building on the vision and achievements of Richard himself, as well as (whisper it) the best of the Winifred era, brought such artists of vision, Boulez included, to the Green Hill, showing not only the necessary courage to fail but the equally necessary courage to rethink, to revise, to rejuvenate: Wagner’s own celebrated ‘Kinder, macht Neues!’ following that very first festival in 1876.

If, gentle reader, you sensed a less-than-gentle ‘but’ approaching, I fear you would be anything other than mistaken. Perhaps nothing, especially in the theatre of Tannhäuser and Parsifal, is truly irredeemable; perhaps something can be salvaged from this. Imagining how lies quite beyond my little mind, though perhaps some machine will tell us. For what the Festival, incomprehensibly, has come up with to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the first Ring must be the greatest travesty ever to have been visited on it anywhere at any time, an experience so unbearable five (out of five) people I spoke to afterwards described it independently as the worst thing they had ever seen, one adding the unforgettable and entirely accurate phrase ‘visual waterboarding’, and a rebuke not only to Wagner, not only to Bayreuth, but to any conception of art that tiny, human mind of mine will ever be able to entertain. Enter the ‘AI’-Ring, mysteriously and with insufferable pretention subtitled ‘‘Ring 10010110 – vom Mythos zum Code’, seemingly undirected, and yet ‘curated’ by one Marcus Lobbes.

What we saw can be dealt with briefly. (If only one might say the same of experiencing it.) Following a mercifully image-free Prelude, beautifully and imaginatively led by Christian Thielemann, near-peerlessly performed by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, any sense of drama, opera, or basic humanity deserts us for a parade of banal screensaver images shown upon a curtain in front of the singers, thus largely obscured and left to fend for themselves, wearing identical, indistinguishable, weirdly yet unrevealingly hideous costumes. (Final applause, for those who could bring themselves to engage, proved something of a game in trying to identify who was presenting him-/herself at any point At least it offered the first and only prospect of entertainment in the entire sorry evening.) Sometimes there was a clear reference to the Ring at Bayreuth, the first image being the celebrated representation of the Rhinemaidens in 1876, amidst genuine theatrical wizardry that enabled them to appear as if swimming in the Rhine. (Yes, as Anna Russell told us, in the Rhine: now on the curtain.) I almost wept upon a brief appearance, in bizarrely low resolution such as would be refused by the least assiduous reviews editor, of Castorf’s Golden Motel, not out of the nostalgia I feel for that production, but because it was vaguely discernible. We did, to be fair, see a few large rings, on apparently female fingers, when the ring should first have been seen on stage with Alberich. Otherwise, endlessly, pointlessly transforming shapes came and went, sometimes returning, few with any relation to what we heard, culminating in an anonymous man and woman who turned into street (or perhaps theatre?) lights, quickly to turn back again. Some more recognisable, if irrelevant images were suggestive of Ludwig II put in a very brief guest appearance during the descent to Nibelheim, as did very occasional glimpses of other Rheingold productions, but that was it.

The ultimately unforgivable thing was the way this abject, wasteful nonsense distracted from whatever might have remained of the drama. With that going on before our eyes, our ears (at least my ears) struggled for more than a minute or so to keep track of what was probably a very good musical performance. Not only was this entirely at odds with any idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk – in many ways, a problematical idea that will benefit from deconstruction – but with art and even humanity themselves. I managed to hear flashes of an intriguingly mobile, flowing orchestral conception shaped by Thielemann—rather along the analytical lines suggested by Wagner in an 1871 report to German Wagner societies, tracing an entire corpus of interrelated themes from the individualisation of ‘a few malleable Nature motifs’. If I sensed that most vividly in the Prelude, its low E-flat foundational in every sense and exquisitely decorated by some of the fruitiest, bubbliest woodwind I can recall hearing here, that is a comment related in no sense to the performance itself.

Vocal contributions seemed to be of a very high standard too. Not having had chance to remind myself of the cast beforehand, I had a very pleasant surprise in hearing Klaus Florian Vogt, no less, as Loge, the ringing clarity and sincerity of his tone both in consonance with the demi-god’s revelation of uncomfortable truths and in productive contrast with his wheedling strategizing. Michael Volle’s performance, lighter than one often hears from him and in keeping with the specific demands of the Rheingold Wotan, would doubtless have graced any stage, had I been able to follow it adequately; likewise Jochen Schmeckenbecher’s darker hued Alberich, Mika Kares’s evidently lovelorn Fasolt, Christa Mayer’s chalumeau-like Erda, and much else besides, Evelyn Novak's golden Freia and a fine trio of Rhinemaidens included. To claim that I properly heard any of these performance, though, would be entirely misleading, so I shall leave it there.

According to Tina Lorenz, writing in the programme, ‘Ring 10010110 tells a radically contemporary story about how we are currently witnessing the beginnings of a transformation in the global order’. It may be a ‘contemporary’ story, but its only ‘radicalism’ lies in turning Das Rheingold and presumably the rest into an immersive Fidelio in which we as prisoners finally experience light and fresh air upon its close. The stampede for the doors was unlike any I have seen—or participated in. Some brave souls managed to agitate for opening of the theatre doors during its course and escaped, to the intense envy and admiration of the rest of us. A period of lengthy reflection, absention, and apology would be in order from all involved. Wagner deserves better, as do the musicians and audience. So too does a world, like that of the Ring, on fire thanks to wasteful, ‘technological’ domination.

Bayreuth Festival (1) - Rienzi, 26 July 2026

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:37:08 +0000

Festspielhaus

Images: Enrico Nawrath

Rienzi – Andreas Schager
Irene – Gabriela Scherer
Colonna – Andreas Baer-Kanabas
Adriano – Jennifer Holloway
Orsini – Michael Nagy
Cardinal Raimondo – Vitalij Kowaljow
Baroncelli – Matthias Stier
Cecco del Vecchio – Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Messenger of Peace – Victoria Randem

Directors, set and costume designs – Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka
Lighting – Bernd Gallasch
Video – Leonard Koch

Dramaturgy – Markus Kiesel

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus director: Thomas Eitler-de Lint)
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Nathalie Stutzmann (conductor)

On 22 May 1872, Wagner laid the foundation stone to his new festival theatre, followed by a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, probably the single most important artistic work other than his own for Wagner’s own life and work. It has reappeared for key anniversaries ever since, not least the reopening (and ‘rebranding’) of the Festival as ‘New Bayreuth’ in 1951, including this year’s sesquicentennial edition. Unable to attend that official first night, I nonetheless hastened to the still more auspicious, unquestionably more historic event of the second, the first ever Festspielhaus staging of Wagner’s third opera, Rienzi, Last of the Tribunes. Excluded by Cosima – not without warrant from The Master himself – from the Bayreuth canon, Rienzi has actually appeared once before in Bayreuth, alongside the still earlier Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot, during the 2013 bicentenary of Wagner’s birth. That initiative, likewise from Festival Director Katharina Wagner, nonetheless operated in the penumbra of the Festival proper: in the Oberfrankenhalle sports complex, albeit played by the Festival Orchestra and (unlike its two predecessors) staged within the limitations of the arena. Now, however, for the first time since 1901, a new Wagner opera was admitted to the formal Festspielhaus canon.

How many people in the audience, on this first night or thereafter, will have known Rienzi at all, and if so to what extent, is an open question. Probably more than in many (all?) other theatres, I should guess, but still with a considerable number who will never previously have had the opportunity to see it, and doubtless some who will never have heard it. That holds implications for how to present it and for how it will be received. So too does the vexed question of a text for the work. The latter opens up a fascinating, rich, and complex world in itself, which I cannot even begin to summarise here. Suffice to say that the very idea of a complete text sits at odds with the expectations of the grand opéra genre in which Wagner was mostly, if not entirely, composing this ‘große tragische Oper’. That is, even if there were a single version, it would not necessarily – almost certainly not – have been expected that all the material would have been used for any given production and/or performance. There is not, since Wagner made revisions even before performance, and would unquestionably have done so again for future performances in which he wished to offer even a provisional, let alone definitive, version to the world. Late in life, he famously declared he still owed the world a Tannhäuser; whether he felt similarly about Rienzi is more dubious, though we might do so. If I understand correctly, the 2026 ‘Bayreuther Fassung’ of the verbal text has its foundation in that Wagner authorised in 1871 (presumably for the Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen published that year), with some textual variants nonetheless adopted, and an important, almost equal role played by the piano score in Egon Voss’s complete edition. Wagner’s stage directions are, for better or worse, ‘only seldom adopted’—which, as Brahms might have told us, any ass can see.

Lack of surviving sources that would enable definitive presentation, as opposed to reconstruction, of particular musical versions presents another, currently insuperable problem. The autograph, given by Winifred to Hitler, disappeared one way or another with him in 1945, as did performance parts in Dresden the same year, courtesy of ‘Bomber’ Harris et al. Much more could be said – and has been – about those difficulties, but like any such difficulties, they can also present creative and intellectual opportunities, perhaps especially when coming into dialogue, conflict, whatever we wish to call it, with a festival founded on strong notions – born in Wagner himself, at least the Wagner of late life – of a textual canon. At any rate, although the idea of a ‘complete’ Rienzi is straightforwardly impossible and probably undesirable, this gave a far better sense of the shifting boundaries and potentialities of the ‘work’ than my previous theatrical encounter, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, with a version so mutilated as to verge upon the useless.

The question then, remains: how did this new Rienzi fare—with relation to these parameters and, let us to be fair, to its own too? There are very few cases – in my personal experience, only Stefan Herheim’s Parsifal comes to mind – in which a first-year production at ‘Werkstatt Bayreuth’ has proved its strongest, and/or has not undergone considerable modification in light of stage experience. If, as we have been led to believe, this is to be a one-year-only production, that may prove unfortunate, but for the moment it is in any case all we have. My assessment would be mixed, albeit with overriding gratitude for the occasion so much as to present itself. To my mind, orchestral playing and vocal performance considerably eclipsed conducting and stage direction, although everything afforded material to consider and reflect on, both in itself and in relation to broader ideas of the Festival, its history, and its future, which is just as it should be.

Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka’s staging had its moments, but mirroring Nathalie Stutzmann’s conducting, failed to my eyes (and ears) to form a coherent assemblage, let alone whole, whilst ultimately proving more successful than either director (Philipp Stölzl) or conductor (Evan Rogister) in Berlin. The staging opened chez Rienzi, with Irene and a child in attendance. Given the advanced state of their brother-sister relationship, I assumed the child was theirs; only in the programme, did I discover him to have been their brother. (So far as I was aware – and I may well have missed something – nothing defined who he was, the first of several signal directorial omissions.) The brother’s death whilst Rienzi and Irene pursued their relations formed the foundation of a psychosexual crisis that offered the ultimate explanation for Rienzi’s deeds thereafter. Reductionist, nous? But then we repaired to a world of rolling (and fake) news, of social media speculation about ‘keeping it in the family’ and worse, whilst opinion polls forecast apparently increased vote share for Rienzi vis-à-vis his electoral opponents, Colonna and Orsini. Whatever the scandal, it seemingly did our would-be-tribune, ‘Rienzi for Prez’, no harm, though the fickleness of the crowd ultimately would. In essentials, then, here was criticism of that which liberals have christened ‘populism’, with little fundamental recognition that the people may be right as well as wrong, and that in their systemic as well as charismatic manipulation lies the greater problem. I might add here that, in the absence of German, let alone English, titles – to my mind, a mistake for a work unfamiliar to many – some things could be filled in via placards and screens: no bad thing, which merits commendation.

In Wagner’s second act, which formed the second half of the first of Bayreuth’s three acts, the ballet was, rather to my surprise, retained, although most of its sense was lost. Wagner’s brilliant idea, in defiance of grand opéra convention, of offering dramatically meaningful dance, in this case via an allegory of the rape of Lucretia, was ditched in favour of a Bayreuth metatheatrical show that took in many of the dramas to come, from Das Rheingold to Parsifal, all directed from the other side of the political-dramatic stage by a gilded mini-Wagner familiar from around the town (here played by a child—and very well too). If much was lost, a considerable amount was also gained, and the humour of showing us as audience rushing to the Bratwurst stall and lavatories was well observed. A turn to sacrifice and martyrdom – seemingly of the entire Rienzo family – was abrupt and, stigmata aside, a little too dependent on a screen relay of Olivet Discourse prophecies from St Matthew’s Gospel, first in English, then in Latin. Again, something more broadly rather than personally political would have been welcome, but it made its point well enough. Visual inheritance from Meyerbeer (and presentiment of Götterdämmerung) in stage positioning of Rienzi, Irene, and Adriano was striking in its complement to the score.

The third/second act was perhaps the most successful, its colour and overall look splendidly dark. Rienzi suddenly becoming a crazed murderer, firing mortal shots, was a duly shocking moment—although I am not sure so ‘critical’ a stance to the opera and its hero was necessary or even advisable at this stage in its chequered reception. The final act(s) had politics more or less entirely collapse in favour of Rienzi as a sort of hapless Macbeth, incomprehensibly stabbed by Irene rather than meeting his death at the hands of the populace. For some reason, during the fifth act proper, they both went backstage, the world as theatre returning, the point presumably being that all of these worlds – social media, Bayreuth, politics, and more – are stages of some point. A lack of clarity in direction, though, made much of this seem weirdly arbitrary, as did Rienzi carrying on crying, gesturing, and singing for a long time after his death had apparently come. I gleaned little concerning who the ‘smaller’ characters were. One might say – unfairly to my mind – that Wagner might have offered more here; but even if one did, that surely presents a challenge or, better, an opportunity to the directors, not a fait accompli.

Rienzi explicitly looks forward to a united Italy, which in Vormärz Saxony had obvious implications for a German revolution from below. Nor for nothing did Friedrich Engels sketch a drama on the same subject at pretty much the same time. By all means try something different, but do it with more evident knowledge and understanding of that from which you are differing. Szemerédy would seemingly benefit from, among other things, a lesson in basic historical chronology if she seriously thinks, as she is quoted saying in the programme: ‘How much Hitler is actually in Rienzi? The case had to be reopened.’ None, literally none; there is no ‘case’ to answer. Hitler was born in 1889; Wagner died in 1883; Rienzi was written forty years before that. That is not what she meant, of course, but the starting point remains unfortunate and straightforwardly wrong, whether in theory or in practice.

At least as consistent a failing, though, was the directors’ failure to consider the crucial role of the Church and Papacy. If not eliminated from the words, it was entirely absent from the stage, without even a derisory substitute put in its place. One set design may well have been informed, as again the programme informed us, by a floorplan of St John Lateran, but it is difficult to imagine how anyone could have known this, nor appreciated why it might have mattered. If couching the drama in terms of opinion polls, electoral politics, and ‘private lives’ was a signal error – in drama, as in life, we need far more than #ImWithHer – so was avoiding any attempt to reinvent such broader social, political, and ideological structures of the drama. Final approach towards a video man of the future and failure to meet him are all very well, yet unprepared it went for little.

Stutzmann often drew a fine sound from the orchestra, the beginning of the Overture revealing a wondrously golden, blended sound that was not simply the achievement of the covered pit. Alas, the somewhat listless way in which it proceeded was similarly prophetic of much of what was to come. I assume part of the reason for her selection and for her interpretative choices was her attempt in Tannhäuser to emphasise its French origins, but inability to present tempi as part of a greater whole even within numbers, let alone between them, did little service to Wagner’s far from inconsiderable musical dramaturgy. I should usually be the last person to complain about a lack of applause, if perceived as merited, within acts. ‘Traditional’, ‘historically informed’, or not, I cannot stand the practice; it has been outmoded since long before Wagner (with the possible knowing exception of Strauss’s Zerbinetta). And yet here, awkward silences, born of the audience’s ‘proper’ Bayreuth respect for the unity of the act, cried out for something to fill them. It need not have been that way, but it was the conductor’s responsibility to impart a sense of unity that precluded thoughts of audience participation, even in its absence. Wolfgang Sawallisch’s live 1983 (another Wagner anniversary) Munich recording remains an object lesson, if not in forestalling applause, then more importantly in creating a convincing, compelling tonal-dramatic plan. It is not the only way to perform Rienzi; there is never one way. But it has an idea and achiev

Ariadne auf Naxos, Glyndebourne, 19 June 2026

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:33:05 +0000

Music Master – Michael Kraus
Major Domo – William Relton
Lackey – Oliver Williams
Officer – Owen Lucas
Composer – Samantha Hankey
Tenor, Bacchus – David Butt Philip
Wigmaker – Hector Bloggs
Zerbinetta – Alina Wunderlin
Prima Donna, Ariadne – Rachel Willis-Sørensen
Dancing Master – Ru Charlesworth
Naiad – Anna Denisova
Dryad – Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein
Echo – Eirin Rognerud
Harlequin – Mikhail Timoshenko
Scaramuccio – Caspar Singh
Truffaldino – Lian James Karai
Brighella – Liam Bonthrone

Director – Laurent Pelly
Set designs – Massimo Troncanetti
Lighting – Marco Giusti

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Robin Ticciati (conductor)

Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos should in many ways be the ideal Glyndebourne opera. It is indeed pretty much the ideal opera for any opera house, given its metatheatrical treatment not only of the genre itself, but of almost any aesthetic standpoint anyone in the audience might care to adopt (including none at all). All are fondly mocked and cherished; all can see and hear themselves. The question of art as ‘entertainment’ in a ‘country-house opera’ setting in which the picnic can take almost as long as the performance, itself increasingly prey to what the late Michael Tanner christened the ‘Glyndebourne guffaw’, is especially keen here. So too, for many of us, is the necessity for it to be more than merely entertainment, for the authors’ twin, arguably conflicting ideas and strategies of transformation (Verwandlung) to come into play. It is an opera, then, to be treated with good humour and seriousness, affection and critical distance, these and the opera’s other binaries all informing one another and reminding us why we might have fallen in love with the genre in the first place—even to the extent of catching trains, buses, and more in the madness of decamping to rural Sussex with hampers and the like for an afternoon in the uncharacteristically burning sun. Thinking and writing about opera are part of that joy and madness too, not least since one is almost inevitably setting oneself up to be lampooned in this context (that is, in the unlikely event anyone should really care what one has to say). Without hedging or situating further, I am somewhat saddened to say that it was only in the realm of vocal artistry and individual dramatic performances that this new production shone, staging and conducting leaving much to be desired, even to the extent of coming across in unduly provisional form.

Let us start with the good news then. Our artists – and artistes – acquitted themselves with excellence ‘as themselves’ in the Prologue and, where relevant and appropriate, as something more in the Opera. Rachel Willis-Sørensen resisted any temptation there may have been to present the Prima Donna as a mere caricature; this was a singer who knew her worth, certainly, but without seeming silly or monstrous. Her seriousness – that word again – in preparing for Ariadne was genuine, as was her achievement in a splendid ‘Es gibt ein Reich…’ and beyond. One might say much the same of David Butt Philip’s Tenor/Bacchus, whose keen attention to words as well as music ensured uncommon depth, not least in furthering our appreciation of where (and whom) he was coming from, in Circe’s guise. Given the enormous technical and other demands placed on Zerbinetta, it is striking how few fail. It is really one of those roles one does not consider attempting unless one can. Alina Wunderlin proved no exception, whether as immensely likeable artist or purveyor of pinpoint coloratura thrills that yet did not mask a necessary sadness behind them. Samantha Hankey’s Composer was a sincere, similarly likeable portrayal, offering an unmistakeably human trouser role in various of its complexities and possibilities. There was much to admire elsewhere, too, the cast assembled in depth with vivid cameos from a world-weary Michael Kraus as Music Master, and Ru Charlesworth as his overtly camp, yet similarly professional opposite number in the world of dance. A haughty Major Domo (William Relton), a fine trio of Rhinemaidens or Naiad, Dryad, and Echo, and a spirited desert island troupe offered other highlights.

Insofar as Laurent Pelly’s production offered a framework, or at least setting, for those performances it functioned well enough. Too often, though, the lack of an evident directoral hand was felt: conceptually, but even in imparting much beyond the sense of bringing the cast together. Was this in some sense the Composer’s dream, suggested by his/her return to view proceedings? If so, that seems a workable, even promising idea, but little was done with it, beyond presenting a Prologue set that combined Rococo and modern, and an Opera wilderness around which characters walked, more or less directed. If Pelly did not get in the way of the work’s dramatic themes, nor did he seem interested in bringing them out either. There is much one could do here to suggest more than the sum of its parts, yet any attempt to do so passed me by. Likewise when it came to Robin Ticciati’s painting-by-numbers conducting, notwithstanding the strengths of the London Philharmonic in itself. We lumbered from section to section, with little to suggest connection between them. A strangely motoric opening intrigued, as if Stravinsky – who openly despised this opera, or claimed to – had been set the task of reinterpreting it, perhaps in the light of Pulcinella. That was soon binned, though, another, arbitrary idea come to replace it for a minute or two, and so on. Again, it gave an impression of what the work might be, but little more than that. A sense of magic beyond the vocal remained stubbornly elusive.

Vivacious Transportation: Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:21:15 +0000

Rossini – Il barbiere di Siviglia

Il Conte d’Almaviva – Marco Ciaponi
Don Bartolo – Roberto De Candia
Rosina – Alexandra Meteleva
Figaro – Kim Min
Don Basilio – Giorgio Caoduro
Fiorello/Un ufficiale – Gonzalo Godoy Sepúlveda
Berta – Aloisia de Nardis

Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino / Riccardo Bisatti.
Stage director – Damiano Michieletto.

Cavea del Teatro del Maggio, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence, Italy. Saturday, July 18th, 2026.

For the month of July, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino moves its activities to a space called the Cavea, situated on the roof of the modern theatre. Getting there requires one to walk a staircase along the side of the building up to the top, quite a challenge on a humid Florentine night, but once up there, visitors were rewarded with a coupon for a refreshing, free ice cream, which was a lovely touch. The space itself is wonderful. It’s a natural amphitheatre, suitable for unamplified music, and being able to watch opera under the ‘cielo divino’ of the cradle of the renaissance is simply magical. Even more so because those willing to walk a few more steps to the top of the auditorium are rewarded with glorious views of Brunelleschi’s dome and other Florentine landmarks. I must admit, I was absolutely enchanted by the setting.

It also helped that the performance was similarly delightful. For its summer program, the Maggio has chosen to present Damiano Micheletto’s staging of Il barbiere di Siviglia, tonight revived by Stefania Grazioli, and conducted by Riccardo Bisatti. This staging is testament to how Michieletto is one of the finest opera directors around. Given the limitations of working in the outdoor space, he makes so much of little, the set consisting of two dozen red chairs on the black stage that are moved around to create varying stage pictures, and occasionally accessorized with other accoutrements, such as some cushions for Rosina’s boudoir, or a sheet upon which graffiti artists paint a storefront for Figaro’s salon. With a relatively small stage, the chorus sings dressed in black on the side. Michieletto starts the evening with a train announcement, announcing an express train from Florence to Seville. The overture is then staged with the principals acting out passengers on a train, along with some actors who are constant presences on the stage to move the chairs around. I loved that idea of the opera taking us from our quotidian reality of train delays and commuting to a fantasy world, full of outlandish costumes, by Carla Teti.

Throughout the evening, Michieletto throws so many visual gags into the action. Whether, soldiers showing up in Donald Duck masks in the Act 1 finale, or Rosina acting as a boxing match hostess while the Conte squares off against Bartolo. The entire evening is deliciously zany and, in that respect, felt so completely Rossinian. The hours passed by as if they were seconds, the stage action was intricate, while also feeling completely spontaneous – and had clearly been revived most efficiently by Grazioli. The principals all threw themselves into the action fully and seemed to be having the most wonderful time, the energy emerging from the stage was completely winning. This, combined with the magical setting, meant that one sat watching the evening with a constant grin from beginning to end.

Musically, the evening was in the very competent hands of Bisatti. He was aware of the limitations of operating in an outdoor venue such as this. He kept the tempi nicely swift – the ‘buona sera mio signore’ was taken very quickly, as was Berta’s subsequent aria. Despite the very humid evening, the string and wind intonation was true throughout, the modest string section (8 first violins and 3 double-basses) played with exceptional precision of attack, in an acoustic where there was nowhere for them to hide. The recitatives were accompanied by an amplified electronic keyboard set to resemble a harpsichord. Of course, one might have preferred a fortepiano, but given the limitations of operating in a venue such as this, this was an effective solution. I had not previously been aware of Bisatti, but tonight he proved himself to be a terrific Rossinian and a young conductor I would be keen to hear more from.

Marco Ciaponi sang the Conte in a bright, forwardly-placed tenor. He sang his opening cavatina, ‘Ecco ridente in cielo’, with a princely line, the legato wonderfully smooth, and the voice opening up with sunny ease on top. He also has delicious comic timing, entering into his various guises most gamely. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear his ‘Cessa di più resistere’, which is a real shame as I’m sure he would have sung it spectacularly. Ciaponi has the ability to dispatch the rapid-fire coloratura with brilliant ease. Naturally, his diction was superb, but this was the case throughout the entire cast, which meant the evening took wing even more.

Alexandra Meteleva sang Rosina in a similarly sunny mezzo. Her ‘una voce poco fa’ was dispatched with immaculate coloratura and genuine wit in her stage presence, the words always nicely forward. Hers was a strong Rosina, one who was never going to submit to Don Bartolo. From the very first moments, Metelva made that clear through her constant playful mocking of Bartolo and the way that she used her vivacious tone colours to illustrate the words. It was a luxury to have Roberto De Candia as Bartolo. He’s a true Rossini master, dispatching the rapid-fire patter with precision, while never compromising the clarity of his diction. He was also tremendously game, compromising his intonation, while singing his arietta of admiration, to Rosina to terrific comic effect.

Kim Min sang Figaro in wonderfully idiomatic Italian. He’s clearly learned the style well, dispatching the recitatives with genuine personality and character. He immediately made an impression in his entrance aria, giving it a scintillating bravura edge, yet never succumbing to the urge to compromise the tone. Throughout the evening, Kim was a deliciously congenial presence on stage. Giorgio Caoduro sang Basilio in a big, rich bass. His ‘la calunnia’ was wonderfully conspiratorial, even in this outdoor setting, he used the dynamics to grow the aria gradually so that the ‘colpo di cannone’ felt genuinely exciting. In his roles, Gonzalo Godoy Sepúlveda sang his music in a handsome, burnished baritone, sung nicely off the text. Indeed, I very much hope to hear his Figaro soon. Aloisia de Nardis capped the ensemble in the Act 1 finale in a diamantine soprano, while she sang Berta’s aria with genuine wit and easy reach. Despite their placement at the side of the stage, Lorenzo Fratini’s chorus sang with good blend and genuine presence.

Sepia Starlets: Aida at the Circo Massimo

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 15:23:09 +0000

Verdi – Aida

Aida – Yolanda Auyanet
Il Re – Adriano Gramigni
Amneris – Valentina Pernozzoli
Radamès – Ivan Magrì
Amonasro – Ernesto Petti
Ramfis – Alex Esposito
Un Messaggero – Andrea Schifaudo
Sacerdotessa – Veronica Marini

Coro del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma / Daniele Callegari.
Stage director – Davide Livermore.

Opera di Roma, Circo Massimo, Rome, Italy. Wednesday, July 15th, 2026.

For this year’s edition of its summer festival, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma has set up a temporary theatre in the Circo Massimo in the heart of ancient Rome. It certainly made for an atmospheric setting for a performance of Aida. The start of Act 3 was particularly striking, with the dreamy strings of remembrance accompanied by the songs of cicadas and the chatting of the Italian Nonne in the audience. The mature ladies next to me were keen not to let an operatic performance prevent their conversation, with one of them giving us the added bonus of her vigorously air conducting ‘celeste Aida’ while miming singing along and putting her feet up on the seat in front. It was definitely an experience.

The staging, directed by Davide Livermore, was the same that I saw in Monte-Carlo last November. It was interesting to see it again, since I must admit my experience of it was very different in this outdoor setting than it was in the theatre in Monaco. Tonight, the Opera provided two screens at each side of the stage, which showed the events on stage in close-up. This was particularly effective as Livermore’s design for his staging is based on a reimagining of a 1920s silent movie, with costumes and maquillage reflecting that era. As the close-ups on video were shown in a sepia tint, this very much brought Livermore’s stage pictures to life much more effectively than when I saw it in the theatre, where the visuals lacked the impact that the close-ups brought. I still find the choreography, also by Livermore, unintentionally risible. The bare-chested pharaohs brandishing spears were hilariously camp, although I think they were meant to be threatening, and the danseuses who simultaneously acted out the haka while having an epileptic fit definitely gave plenty of laughs.

Furthermore, compared to Monaco, the video, by D-WOK, which provides constant visual accompaniment to the action on stage seemed to be part of a bigger whole. It was present, but one’s attention was much more focused on the principals than on anywhere else. That focus meant that it became clear that personenregie was very much based on standing and delivering to the front, with exaggerated hand movements. It certainly was in line with the silent movie aesthetic that Livermore was aiming for, but during the evening I longed for him to illustrate the desperate themes in the work – the drama of love, war, jealousy and exile. These all felt underexplored. That said, what I really appreciated was how clear the text was throughout the cast. This made the drama crackle much more than the stage movements alone.

The musical direction was confided to Daniele Callegari. As is customary at the summer festival, the performance was amplified. A big difference to the previous two occasions I have attended shows here is that the amplification appears to have been upgraded, now reflecting the position of the singers on stage. It did seem that the chorus was a bit recessed in the sound design, the opening of the triumphal scene lacked the impact it might have had since they sounded a bit distant; but the end of that scene sounded much louder, as if someone had flicked a switch and turned up the volume. The string sound was somewhat brittle at lower volumes, simply as a result of the acoustic, and the amplification did highlight some momentary lapses of coordination – surely not helped by the very hot and sultry evening. The brass was on excellent form, not a split note all night, and the winds were deliciously fragrant and full of personality. Callegari seemed to be fully aware that working in an outdoor acoustic such as this, he needed to keep the tempi nicely fluid, which certainly compensated for the sonic dryness of the location. He also managed to generally keep his forces together most admirably, again an achievement given the challenges of working in a space such as this.

The run has been double-cast. The cast I saw this evening was composed entirely of Italian or Hispanophone singers, which greatly aided textual understanding and meant that the words really did come to life. Tonight was my first time hearing Yolanda Auyanet. The Canarian soprano is an honest, genuine singer who brought much emotion to her music, all sung off the text. The middle of the voice has a rich beauty and her soprano is grounded in a genuine chestiness. The top, however, is rather problematic. While the middle does give much pleasure, the top becomes strident, lacking in spin, with the tone curdling. Auyanet also doesn’t quite have the support lined up, meaning that she had to break the ascent to the high C in ‘oh patria mia’, and the support issues meant that she wasn’t able to float on high in the way that one might hope for. That said, as I mentioned, she is an incredibly sincere and honest singer, who genuinely brought out emotion through the text – and that’s an aspect worth appreciating.

Luciano Ganci brought his robust, sunny tenor to the role of Radamès. As with Auyanet, the middle is most attractive, with a genuine warmth to the tone. The voice did have a tendency to spread on high, the vibrations becoming looser. He made a valiant attempt to phrase ‘celeste Aida’ in long lines, but the closing high B-flat was trumpeted out, with no attempt to incorporate the pianissimo indicated in the score. Again, this was genuine, heart-felt singing with real textual eloquence and in that respect, Ganci gave pleasure. Alex Esposito is making his role debut as Ramfis in this run. His bass is far from the massive bruisers we often hear in the role. Instead, Esposito gave us something much more lyrical and thoughtful. I very much appreciated this approach. He sang his ‘Nume, custode e vindice’ with an even legato and handsome tone, making his imprecations much more prayerful than we often hear. A notable new role for this always excellent artist. Amonasro is also a good role for Ernesto Petti, who sang with focused tone and musicality. He raged effectively in his curse of Aida, but still maintained the integrity of the tone. We also had agreeable interventions from Adriano Gramigni who sang il Re in a lugubrious bass and Veronica Marini who was an extrovert and confident Sacerdotessa. In the role of Un Messaggero, Andrea Schifaudo brought a bright, forward tenor, making every word of his brief scene count. The chorus, prepared by Ciro Visco, sang with enthusiasm and free vibrations in the sopranos, while the tenors and basses sang their priestly harmonies with accurate tuning.

Photo: © Brescia & Amisano / Teatro alla Scala

Spitalfields Festival: Choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London/Carey - Palestrina, Soriano, et al., 8 July 2026

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 14:26:24 +0000

Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London

Palestrina, arr. Francesco Soriano: Missa Papae Marcelli (for eight voices in double choir)
Interspersed with:
Palestrina: Ave Regina coelorum a 8
Plainchant: Ave Maris Stella
Flor Peeters: Toccata, Fugue et Hymne sur Ave Maris Stella, op.28
Plainchant: Gaudeamus omnes in Domino
Charles Tournemire: ‘Introit’ from L’Orgue mystique, op.57 no.35, ‘In assumptio BMV’
Plainchant: Assumpta est Maria
Tournemire: ‘Offertoire’ from L’Orgue mystique, ‘In assumptio BMV’
Palestrina: Assumpta est Maria a 6

Daniel Greenaway (organ)
Choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London
Colm Carey (director)

Images: Matt Abel-Smith (from another performance by this choir)

This final concert from the 2026 Spitalfields Festival provided not only an excellent musical experience. It also offered the opportunity to visit one of the Tower of London’s two chapels, St Peter ad Vincula, its current building dating from the 1520s, although others have stood on the same site, perhaps even prior to the Norman Conquest. Many are buried there, including two of Henry VIII’s wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both executed at the Tower, and his successor-but-one, albeit for nine days, Queen Jane. Thomas Macaulay wrote of the chapel, in his mid-nineteenth-century History of England:

In truth there is no sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and with imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts.

It depends what one means by sadness; if one understands it as something qualitatively different from, say, tragic, as opposed to the latter being an extreme version of the former, then this might, according to taste, have truth in it. At any rate, this royal peculiar is an interesting, unusual, and enduringly strange corner of what is itself now a rather strange complex, more exclusively associated in the popular imagination with imprisonment, execution, and death than its history warrants, so much so that one can readily forget the Tower was for centuries a palace in which English monarchs lived in courtly splendour, eating, drinking, carousing, ruling, praying, and more.

There was nothing especially deathly about this concert, notwithstanding the tombs around us (hardly unusual in church buildings). It was, however, an unusual programme, offering an arraignment for eight voices in double choir of Palestrina’s celebrated Missa Papae Marcelli by one of his pupils, Francesco Soriano. Colm Carey, director of the Choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London, thought it may have been the first concert performance in this country; at any rate it was a rare opportunity. The twofold legend that the Council of Trent sought to banish polyphony from services and that Palestrina’s mass ‘saved’ it may be little more than that. It has proved a hardy legend though, all the way to Hans Pfitzner’s opera and beyond. The intelligibility of the liturgical text, saviour of polyphony or not, is the crucial thing here—and it certainly endures in Sapiano’s version, all the more so when performed with such excellence as we were treated to here. Palestrina’s mass is written for six voices, with a seventh added for the second movement of the ‘Agnus Dei’, although he employs different combinations of voices throughout. From what I have read – I do not recall having heard any other music by him – Soriano worked basically within the tradition of Palestrina, with whom he studied at St John Lateran, whilst adopting the newer polychoral style, which fits very well with what we heard here.

A rich toned, admirably clear performance kept counterpoint and harmony in admirable balance. The ‘Kyrie’ flowing nicely, with its ‘Christe’ offering contrast and continuation, nicely shaded without fussiness or undue anachronism. Palestrina’s eight-voice Ave Regina coelorum sounded, perhaps, a little ‘purer’—though this may well have been my fancy, owing to what I ‘knew’. At any rate, it offered another complement and contrast, as well as pleasure and edification in its counterpoint. No one could doubt the ‘Tridentine’ intelligibility of the ‘Gloria’, as the liturgy became wordier. It was here that the arrangement revealed certain foretellings of later music, if not quite Monteverdi’s seconda prattica, then a little beyond the primo. Tenor intonation of the plainchant Ave maris stella (which many of course will recognise from Monteverdi) prefaced Daniel Greenaway’s performance of a Toccata, Fugue, et Hymne on that theme by Flor Peeters Greenaway communicated i.ts structure with admirable clarity, not merely for itself, but enabling the music that forms it to come to life. It is a strangely reactionary piece – like much twentieth-century organ music – but its echoes of Hindemith were not without interest.

Hearing the Palestrina-Soriano mass in such a chapel gave rise to some thoughts of correspondence with English music, above all that of Byrd, and perhaps most clearly in the ‘Credo’. To perform it in a chapel such as this would once have been unthinkable, perhaps giving rise to a greater English exceptionalism than was ever warranted. In more purely musical terms, to hear it performed as if in one, variegated breath, form secure and revealing, was a splendid gift. Two pieces from Charles Tournemire’s liturgical L’Orgue mystique, each again preceded by appropriate plainchant, showed a markedly different aspect to the organ in general, the chapel instrument in particular, and its playing. Here, moreover, the composer’s elaboration of plainsong seemed considerably more rooted in the immanent qualities of the material. If, at one point, I could have sworn I heard a recollection of the then new music of Turandot, I suspect it was coincidental or mere fancy: more a reflection of having heard the opera twice in recent succession than anything else. Or perhaps not; I must relisten.

Returning to Palestrina and Soriano, the ‘Sanctus’ did just what it should, singing its praises unhurried, yet flowing. The ‘Benedictus’ likewise boasted a keen sense of inevitable ‘rightness’, culminating in cries of ‘Osanna’ that truly lifted the soul. They in turn led to the spirited ascension of Palestrina’s six-voice motet Assumpta est Maria, which sounded, however sentimental the notion may be, properly Marian—connecting us to the chapel’s earliest, pre-Reformation history as well as to revivals thereafter. Carolling harmonic surprises on the words ‘Maria Virgo’ proved a highlight of programme and performance alike, angels singing from heaven to earth and back again, then building to fine, rounded climaxes. With an ‘Agnus Dei’ of hymnal sincerity, fitting to its place in liturgical and concert frameworks alike, the programme reached a conclusion of estimable beauty.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 5 July 2026

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:47:28 +0000

Images: Stephan Rabold

Bassa Selim – Bülent Ceylan
Konstanze – Adela Zaharia
Blonde – Serafina Starke
Belmonte – Siyabonga Maqungo
Pedrillo – Michael Laurenz
Osmin – David Steffens

New version and presentation – Bülent Ceylan, Andrea Moses, Michael Höppner
Director – Andrea Moses
Set designs – Raimund Bauer
Costumes – Anja Rabes
Lighting – Irene Selka
Video – Andrea Gabriel
Dramaturgy – Michael Höppner, Detlef Giese

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus director: Gerhard Polifka)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Thomas Guggeis (conductor)

No one is perfect, although Mozart’s music often is. One of many differences between the Staatsoper Unter den Linden’s previous and current musical directors is the latter’s apparent lack of interest in the operas of Mozart. Christian Thielemann’s ongoing rejuvenation of the house’s record in Strauss’s dramatic works has already offered some compensation. Both he and Daniel Barenboim have of course long since proved themselves distinguished, if strikingly different, Wagnerians. It was, in his context, a heartening development to see the house offer a new production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail—not, I think, a work Barenboim ever conducted in full, although he was known to offer its overture in Busoni’s conclusion. (Barenboim’s advocacy of his fellow adoptive Berliner Busoni’s music is another aspect of the old regime yet to be reprised, but there is time.) That, however, was before reckoning with the new ‘version’ served up by director Andrea Moses, dramaturge Michael Höppner, and comedian Bülent Ceylan. In what proved to be an increasingly depressing evening, there were important redeeming features: the singers and, still more, the players of the Staatskapelle Berlin. The abiding memory, alas, will be of one of the most important musical works in German theatrical history having been treated with undisguised contempt by a director and dramaturge who seemed not even to have bothered to engage with it in the first place.

Billing this as an encounter between comedy and opera immediately posed the question (or rather, sadly did not) of what the relationship between the two might hitherto have been. Have there not been a few such ‘encounters’, or rather more than that, before? It is always worth, though, trying to approach something on its own terms: not that those terms cannot be criticised, but one will better criticise if one has discovered what they might have been. In that, I am afraid I can at best prove only partially successful. Ceylan essentially set the parameters for the evening by introducing it as a comedy show, ‘Entführung Live’. The idea of him as host drifting in and out of the character of the Bassa Selim is not an uninteresting one. Something improvised might, moreover, have sat in fruitful conflict with the work and the more general aesthetic of Vienna’s Nationalsingspiel. If anything, though, the tyranny of a new script proved more of a problem, Ceylan initially speaking as if this were the premiere, only later referring to that in the past tense. Whilst, to an extent, the lack of projection may have been part of the joke, incomprehensibility (to some) of Turkish German and Mannheim dialect the point, I am not sure it can be let off quite so easily. Moreover, for an event that prided itself on speaking to an international audience, the lack of titles, if not for the comedy then at least for the ‘new’ dialogue, was odd. If non-German-speakers, or indeed those of us with some German who nonetheless may have struggled at times, would have known anything, it would surely be the musical texts—the only part of the ‘action’ with titles in English or German. Ceylan was at least respectful to the musical artists, at least until the third act, in which his activity involved a good deal of speaking over them. Melodrama, I suppose, one might call it, but the game show element of highlighting apparen members of the audience – presumably in reference, in one case, to that recent Coldplay concert – had nothing to do with Die Entführung, even in its newly ‘presented’ state.

That said, he did what he was engaged for, and largely did it well. Ire should be reserved for Moses and her dramaturge. For what the production itself was ultimately concerned with remained to me elusive: very little, so far as I could tell, beyond this ‘encounter’. ‘Love’, perhaps, yet without any real questioning of what that might be—or have been. Characterisation went out of the window; there was some very odd direction of Konstanze in ‘Martern aller Arten’, in which she suddenly seemed turned on by the whole farrago, only immediately to forget that. Also absent was much sense of place, beyond a slightly baffling setting of much of it on a ship. Worst of all, the set design at one point revealed an offensive caricature of a woman’s eyes peering out from behind a burqa, hardly ever seen in Turkey, then or now: Orientalism and, let us be honest, Islamophobia far worse than anything in the work, by twenty-first- let alone eighteenth-century standards. (In her incoherent Staatsoper Meistersinger, she arbitrarily incorporated ‘sinister’ Arab figures towards the close, so there seems to be something of a pattern, both undiscriminating and, well, something worse.) The final moral, according to T-shirts thrust upon actors and chorus, appeared to be that everyone loved Bassa Selim. Hmmm, maybe. And even if true: is that it?

There were occasional suggestions that the perennial question ‘was its deutsch? / ‘what is German?’ – we have all been there – might be a theme, but it was so poorly sustained and, worse, haplessly addressed, that it would have been better left alone. If you start from the smug liberal standpoint that your values, more or less anti-historical, stand at such a level of perfection that they are all anyone has needed, currently needs, or will need, you are unlikely to advance politically and certain not to advance dramatically. To quote the unlamented Kamala Harris, ‘I’m speaking.’ Harris’s notorious refusal to acknowledge the right of protestors to be heard, let alone the justice of their cause, indeed points to the ‘elephant in the room’ chez Moses et al. in a city and country that proudly flies Israeli flags (antisemitically described by the present Federal Chancellor as ‘Judenfahne’) from public buildings. If you want a contemporary Orientalist theme, it is staring you in the face, but that would require a little courage. What we heard instead were less calls to Lessing’s gospel of tolerance, let alone modern diversity, than of self-congratulation that Berlin first and Germany second had advanced to their current stage of enlightenment. In reality, Moses offered no real concept beyond self-congratulation and enabling sections of the audience to congratulate themselves too, and strikingly little interest in, or even awareness of, the work. The craft of actual stage direction seemed more notable for absence than presence (unless, clutching at straws, the impression of non-direction were itself a misguided aesthetic choice).

Enough—though enough did not come soon enough. There were, as I said, aspects of the evening’s ‘entertainment’ truly to praise. One would not hear superior Mozart orchestral playing anywhere in the world; one would almost certainly hear significantly worse. Woodwind solo playing, duetting, and more was exquisite beyond words. (Much here, for better or worse, was beyond words.) The Staatskapelle strings, though, were every bit as fine, eschewing any hint of what passes today, quite erroneously, for ‘period style’, whilst as alive and alert in the present as one could hope for: unquestionably far more so than anything in the production and its ‘presentation’. What cavils I had lay with sometimes fussy direction by Thomas Guggeis. Whilst there was much to admire in his contribution – if not his unwillingness or perhaps inability to put his foot down in cases of the most egregious directorial intervention – then he could sometimes hold the orchestra down a little too ‘prettily’. Moreover, his participation in the contemporary fad of fortepiano ‘commentary’ was, alas, all too predictable in nature. When it was anything more than tracing an orchestral line on the keyboard in front of him, it came to still less, one particularly embarrassing moment excerpts from Mozart elsewhere, albeit with ‘jazzy’ (certainly not jazz-like) syncopation. Still, when he conducted, he mostly conducted very well and, crucially, let the orchestra mostly speak for itself.

The orchestra’s twin partner in virtue, the opera chorus, acquitted itself well too, whatever the trials presented to it onstage. So too did the cast, headed by a sweet-toned, tender Belmont in Siyabonga Maqungo and the almost instrumentally conceived Konstanze of Adela Zaharia (once past a few balance problems early on). Both made their coloratura dramatically expressive, insofar as Moses permitted, as well as musically glittering. So too did the outstanding Blonde of Serafina Starke, a member of the Staatsoper’s International Opera Studio, and her well-matched Pedrillo, Michael Laurenz, as alert to the many demands placed on him onstage as by the score. David Steffens’s Osmin was also first-class: surprisingly subtle, again insofar as permitted.

There's the rub, alas. I suppose one might try to mount a defence rooted in the genre banished by Joseph II’s theatrical reforms, founded in the ideas of Mozart’s friend Joseph von Sonnenfels. Might we see this as a return to the world of Hanswurst and, especially, his improvisational theatre? Sonnenfels’s – by extension, Joseph’s – objections had related to impurity of language, that is it was not (literary) German enough; dramatic triviality; and extensive extemporisation, that is in terms we might now employ, that it did not present a dramatic ‘work’. Its improvisatory nature, shows often only attaining literary form in their musical items, also rendered it extremely difficult to censor. But no, my heart is not in it. Ultimately, in any particular instance, there are no rules. Do whatever you want; a canonical, if slightly precarious, work will survive. But make sure you know what it is you are dealing with and do it well; otherwise, still more than mocking the work, it will mock you. If only this Entführung were anything like as ‘live’ as it thought it was.