Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Wiener Philharmoniker/Gatti)

★★★★☆ This splendid DVD of Norwegian director Stefan Herheim’s 2013 Salzburg Festival production of Die Meistersinger draws a strong visual analogy between Wagner’s comic opera and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It works well, aided by a superlative cast, some knockout staging and the full Vienna Philharmonic and Staatsopernchor under conductor Daniele Gatti. The sets comprise oversized Biedermeier furniture and fittings, emphasising the fairytale feeling. Roberto Sacca as Eurovision song candidate Walther works well with Anna Gabler convincing as his eventual bride. The show, of course, belongs to Hans Sachs, and in Michael Volle we have a particularly fine one, slapstick when playing off Markus Werba’s pedantic, conniving Beckmesser, but also with a very human touch. There are some clever theatrical moments, but look out for the Apprentices’ Dance when hand puppets make way for the full-size thing. Busts of Beethoven, Goethe and Schopenhauer – representing German art to be protected from foreign influences – act as silent witnesses until the exquisite quintet when Sachs unveils the noticeably larger bust of Wagner himself. There is some obligatory on-stage carnality in the crowd scenes but nothing too hard-core. Gatti (shortly to take up his new position as chief conductor of the Concertgebouw),…

July 8, 2015
Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Hasse: Siroe re di Persia (Armonia Atenea/George Petrou)

Johann Adolph Hasse’s Siroe (Dresden, 1763) was a setting of Metastasio’s hit libretto about an otherwise utterly unmemorable King of Persia. Kavadh II was king of the Sasanian Empire for all of one year in 628 after revolting and overthrowing his father. Vinci, Vivaldi and Handel all had a stab at it, and Hasse’s original version starred Farinelli and Caffarelli, but what we have here is his later reworking of the opera. It’s one of those ‘make-you-want-to-shout-at-them’ plots. It seems everybody except his son Siroe is plotting against tyrannical King Cosroe, but who is it that the silly old sod suspects? Yes, you’ve guessed it – Siroe. And, of course, the latter is the only person so honourable that he prefers to stay schtum rather than betray the others. Hasse reveals himself a master of baroque form, perhaps lacking Handel’s memorability, but his equal in structural sonics and dramatic ambition. Occasionally he makes a musical wrong call – an over-passive aria might follow a recitative that should imply a number with a bit more musical spunk – and the modern restorers have had recourse to a couple of inserts from other works in the final act to help things along….

July 8, 2015