Peter Gelb backs down on global showing of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Gounod’s Faust is the sort of opera that gives the genre a bad name. Its libretto is based on a play that takes Part 1 of Goethe’s original mystical morality tale and encrusts it with dowdy Victoriana and shifts the focus to the tortures inflicted on poor Marguerite whose eventual redemption hardly seems a fair consolation in today’s secular world; the lovely music coats a bitter pill that takes quite an effort to swallow. Des McAnuff’s production attempts to restore some of the original’s dramatic gravitas by shifting the opening scene to the Los Alamos laboratories with Faust as a tortured atomic scientist. The arresting imagery during the overture gave an initial frisson so I looked forward to further clever analogies but apart from the obvious effects during the Walpurgisnacht they failed to materialise so the concept proved to be only half-baked. There were other fine visual moments such as the giant project images of Marguerite’s face but the unit set of Faust’s laboratory didn’t seem to be used to its full potential and my attention wandered. Musically however, one couldn’t ask for more with a splendid cast of singing actors doing their best to sell the piece. Kaufmann is…

Latvian soprano becomes first singer to debut in two roles in consecutive performances. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Manuela Hoelterhoff suggests the Met finds another Music Director to make the experience more “pleasant”. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Maestro’s Cosí from a motorized wheelchair brought the house down – and that’s before a note was played. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Picketers claim the victory as Gergiev and Netrebko are heckled at gala performance. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Polish-born Met Opera star is very much flavour of the month but beware of his famous black-list. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

American mezzo who became Solti’s Klytemnestra passes away at the age of 90. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Met’s legendary Carmen passes away at her Manhattan home at the ripe old age of 99. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Met Opera Ring and Chicago new-music sextet Eighth Blackbird head the impressive list of winners.

Staging Wagner’s epic four-part Der Ring Des Nibelungen is the greatest challenge that an opera house can face. The Met’s latest effort, staged by Canadian director Robert Lepage, has been taken out of the opera house and into cinemas all over the world, and is now available in an 8-DVD set. The live performances have taken a bit of a critical battering so how does the small-screen release stack up? First of all, the positives: this is the best looking, best sounding and generally one of the best sung Ring Cycles that you will find.  The high-definition picture is breathtaking in its clarity, while the sound is beautifully engineered to give a wide, natural perspective. The singers have clearly all been miked and every word comes over loud and clear, regardless of stage position or volume of orchestra. The conducting is of a high level, too, with James Levine’s 40 years of experience paying dividends in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, while Fabio Luisi is a solid substitute in Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Lepage’s brief was to produce something traditional enough to satisfy the Met’s conservative support base while utilising his reputation for visual wizardry to realise Wagner’s dream for the…

Heartthrob American tenor channels Mel Gibson’s Braveheart in his Opera Australia debut. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in