Category Archive: Opera
Don Giovanni
"Tu a cenar meco?" (Painting by Fragonard; image by Rama)
(State Opera SA, 30 May 2015) TVC had only seen the disastrous ENO production but not this version which originally featured Teddy Tahu Rhodes as the Don. What a relief to find staging and performances generally faithful to the 1787 work; in fact, superb staging, a simple hall, doubling as a courtyard, bounded by masonry with balconies (which, unfortunately, wobbled a little) but the simplicity of this setting, varied by good use of lighting, emphasized the pyrotechnics of the finale when the far wall collapsed to admit the Commendatore’s statue and a team of demons ferry the Don to the infernal regions (or…
Continue Reading →The Marriage of Figaro
(State Opera SA, 2008) Mozart takes an imperial opera buffa and outdoes Rossini, no mean feat. As directed by Neil Armfield, the sense of the composer’s wickedness is retained, with slight sets that actually add rather than detract. As the triumphant underlings, Figaro and Susanna, David Thelander and Teresa La Rocca make a lovely couple and were in fine form. Based on the subversive book by Beaumarchais, Mozart manages (apparently without effort) to give his frantic entrances and exits a hard edge. A great piece, worth seeing anytime – here done very well indeed.
Continue Reading →Faust
"Faust" by Jean-Paul Laurens
(Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House, 7 March 2015) The story of Faust and his bargain with the Devil is old as the hills and versions are manifold. The first and still greatest example of the legend is Goethe’s monumental poem, in which Mephistopheles bemoans the angels who void his contract by ferrying the old doctor off to heaven and beyond his clutches*. This production is of Gounod’s (19 March 1859) Opera, which was rather loosely adapted from Goethe**, and conceived by Sir David McVicar in 2004 at Covent Garden, revived here by Bruno Ravella. The staging easily survives transportation from…
Continue Reading →Carmen
"Pres des remparts!"
(State Opera SA, 10 November 2011) Carmen is golden, deathless and a remarkable example of the great weird paradox; in life as in art, beautiful women who entrance deficient men get shredded. Perhaps the overt expression of this theme, or an excess of absinthe, caused its stunning, hostile Paris reception on debut in 1875. Brahms, who knew a thing or two about great music, saw it 20 times. Why the French turned on Bizet, one of their own, and rejected one of ‘the greatest creations for the musical stage’ is a mystery. Never mind – Carmen survives and flourishes, even…
Continue Reading →Madama Butterfly
Geraldine Farrar as Cio-Cio-San at the Met, 1907
(State Opera SA, 7/9/2006) In many ways, this piece is ridiculous, but Puccini patched up its failings, including the poverty of the libretto, and triumphed over both the odds and the hostility of Milan, where it premiered in 1904. With some of his loveliest music connecting a few inky dots and a prescient theme of American domination (and carelessness), Butterfly’s desolation still moves us and in this production, her simple sorry plight was not badly sung by Kirsti Harris, amid some stark but satisfyingly depressing scenery. Pinkerton’s Stars and Stripes motif never fails to startle! It was conducted by Aldo…
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