Munich Opera Festival News
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2024-04-24
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2023-07-26 14:27:00
Munich Opera Festival (5) - Tristan und Isolde, 21 July 2023
NationaltheaterTristan – Stuart Skelton King Marke – René Pape Isolde – Anja Kampe Kurwenal – Wolfgang Koch Melot – Sean Michael Plumb Brangäne – Jamie Barton Shepherd – Jonas Hacker Steersman – Christian Rieger Young Sailor – Liam Bonthrone Krzysztof Warlikowski (director) Malgorzata Szczęśniak (designs) Felice Ross (lighting) Kamil Polak (video) Claude Bardouil (choreography) Miron Hakenbeck, Lukas Leipfinger (dramaturgy) Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus director: Johannes Knecht) Bavarian State Orchestra Lothar Koenigs (conductor)Images: Wilfried HöslTristan (Stuart Skelton) and Isolde (Anja Kampe) Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Tristan, first seen two years ago, marking an end to Nikolaus Bachler’s intendancy, is on first sight at least, a puzzling affair. There are ideas, certainly, though quite how they connect, let alone cohere, lay largely beyond me. They seemed, moreover, to bear precious relation to this most treacherous of works, perhaps the most resistant of all operas—if one may call it an opera […]
2023-07-23 13:34:00
Munich Opera Festival (4) - Dido and Aeneas/Erwartung, 20 July 2023
Nationaltheater Dido/A Woman - Aušrinė Stundytė Aeneas – Günter Papendell Belinda – Victoria Randem Venus – Rinat Shaham Sorceress – Key'mon W Murrah First Witch – Elmira Karakhanova Members of the opera-ballet of the Bavarian State Opera – Aaron Amoatey, Erica D’Amica, Ahta Yaw Ea, Arnie Georgsson, Moe Gotoda, João da Gracia Santiago, Serhat Perhat, The Thien Nguyen Interlude: Paweł Mykietyn (music) Maria Magdalena Gocał (vocalist) Jarowsław Regulski (sound design) Krzysztof Warlikowski (director) Malgorzata Szczęśniak (designs) Felice Ross (lighting) Kamil Polak (video) Claude Bardouil (choreography) Christian Longchamp, Katharina Ortmann (dramaturgy) Bavarian State Orchestra Supplementary Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus director: Sergej Bolkhovets) Andrew Manze (conductor) Images: Bernd Uhlig Purcell and Schoenberg: my kind of double-bill. Puritan ‘authenticity’, or whatever it is calling itself at the moment, is so all-pervasive when it comes to the seventeenth century that the fantasy has had little chance—until now. To be fair, […]
2023-07-22 15:31:00
Cuvilliés-TheaterJohann Christian Cannabich: Quintet for two flutes, violin, viola, and cello in F major, op.7 no.1 Mozart: Quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and cello, in F major, KV 370/368b Mozart, arr. Rafaela Seywald: Concert Arias: ‘Ma, che vi fece … Sperai vicino il lido,’ KV 368; ‘Misera, dove son … Ah, non son’ io che parlo,’ KV 369 Mozart: String Quartet no.14 in G major, KV 387 Jasmin Delfs, Talia Or (sopranos) Vera Becker-Öttl, Edoardo Silvi (flutes) Heike Steinbrecher (oboe) Pascal Deuber, Stefan Böhning (horns) Matjaž Bogataj, Immanuel Drißner (violins) Adrian Mustea (viola) Benedikt Don Strohmeier (cello) To the Munich Residenz’s Rococo Cuvilliés-Theater, once simply the Residenztheater, for a fascinating concert entitled ‘Mozart and the Munich Hofkapelle’. It was here, on 29 January 1781, that Idomeneo received its first performance; this programme encircled without including that wonder of the operatic world. First, we heard a quintet for two flutes, violin, […]
2023-07-21 08:38:00
Munich Opera Festival (2) - Semele, 18 July 2023
PrinzregententheaterSemele – Brenda RaeJupiter – Michael SpyresApollo – Jonas HackerAthamas – Jakub Józef OrlińskiJuno – Emily D’AngeloIno – Nadezhda KaryazinaIris – Jessica NilesCadmus, Somnus – Philippe SlyHigh Priest – Milan SiljanovClaus Guth (director) Michael Levine (designs) Gesine Völlm (costumes) Michael Bauer (lighting) rocafilm (video) Ramses Sigl (choreography) Yvonne Gebauer, Christopher Warmuth (dramaturgy) Bavarian State Orchestra LauschWerk (chorus director: Sonja Lachenmayr) Gianluca Capuano (conductor) Images: Monika Rittershaus I was sceptical, I admit, for the first two acts of Claus Guth’s new production of Semele, but it came together and offered an anthropological and psychoanalytical interpretation of Handel’s opera such as I have not encountered before. It is not really my way of thinking, but that is neither here nor there. And what I had initially seen as a disappointingly ‘stylish’ (that is, stylish, but not much more) production, rather in the manner of Christof Loy, albeit with suggestions of something […]