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Maria Callas - Pure (Warner Classics)
Callas recorded for EMI (now part of the Warner stable) for the best part of her professional life. It remains perhaps the most remarkable discography left by a singer, and huge thanks are due to Warner for returning to the original recording tapes in a gigantic undertaking that has resulted in Callas' entire catalogue being reissued and remastered with sound quality unlike we have heard before. Cleaned up but with their essence not tampered with, her recordings are now more immediate and fresh, instantly arresting and it has become easier to comprehend the genius that Callas unquestionably was. You can invest in the complete works with an awesome box set, or buy recitals and operas individually. But if you want to have a listen to how great the changes are, you could start with Pure, a single-CD release featuring tracks from throughout her career. Many of them were recorded in her prime, with some from the latter years when vocal troubles beset the voice – but not the art. As a CD of favourite soprano arias, it works perfectly. As a sampler of the Callas catalogue, it merely hints at the treasures within.
Buy Pure from the ROH Shop
Antonio Pappano – Rossini Overtures (Warner Classics)
We need hardly pretend we didn't know Antonio Pappano was a great Rossinian, so the spark evident in this disc won't surprise anybody. Pappano 'gets' Rossini – the subtle gradations of colour and tempi that make this music unique - and here he catches the tinta of each overture. It's a great mix of the familiar and the less so – overtures from La Cenerentola and Il barbiere di Siviglia we can all hum along to, alongside lesser-known extracts from Semiramide and Le siege de Corinthe, the latter almost Mozartian in its formal detail. The penultimate track is the opening of Guillaume Tell, which Pappano will conduct later this Season - one of six operas at Covent Garden he's unleashing his baton on in 2014/15. Finally, the disc is rounded off on an unexpected note with a wind quartet, 'Andante e tema con variazione' – a work totally unfamiliar to me but well worth hearing.
Buy Rossini Overtures from the ROH Shop
Cecilia Bartoli – St Petersburg (Decca)
It seems that there's no stopping Cecilia Bartoli in her quest for the rare and the valuable. Her latest musical excavation takes her to the Imperial court of St Petersburg, where Italian opera was all the rage with the Tsars. Much of the music though has fallen into obscurity, but on this CD you can enjoy an astoundingly good selection of arias never before recorded - and in many cases - not heard in centuries. The range is astonishing and each work plays to Bartoli's strengths: if the voice is no longer as full as it was, it is still remarkable in its flexibility and range and fully equal to the technical demands of the style. Bartoli has never gives less than her all, and as ever her energy and commitment bursts from the speakers. If Cimarosa is the only familiar composer on the disc, the real discovery for me is Raupach, writing in Russian: full marks to Bartoli for delivering some fiercely challenging music in a language she has not sung previously. This is the best of her recent discs, I think, and a must-have.
Buy St Petersburg from the ROH Shop
The Royal Opera House Online Shop stocks a full range of classical recordings, as well as DVDs and merchandise.]]>
The winners of the fourth annual Critics' Circle Awards have been announced, with composer George Benjamin receiving the award for Outstanding Musician, following the international success of his opera Written on Skin.
Composed to a libretto by Martin Crimp and directed by Katie Mitchell, Written on Skin had its UK premiere at the Royal Opera House in March 2013. The production was a great hit, winning the South Bank Sky Arts Award, and being hailed by the New York Times as a 'standout opera of recent decades'.
George Benjamin will collaborate again with Martin Crimp for a new full-length opera commissioned by The Royal Opera. The as-yet-untitled opera will have its world premiere at Covent Garden in 2018.
Other winners this year include singer Mary Bevan and composer Charlotte Bray, both in the category of Exceptional Young Talent.
Soprano Mary Bevan made her Royal Opera debut in 2013 with Mahogany Opera Group's The Firework-Maker's Daughter. In January, Mary will appear in Monteverdi's Orfeo, a co-production between the Royal Opera House and the Roundhouse.
Composer Charlotte Bray has had works commissioned by some of the most established ensembles, including Britten Sinfonia, Opera North, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Charlotte is currently writing a short piece for the Royal Opera House's Youth Opera Company which will be performed later in the 2014/15 Season.
See the full list of 2014 winners.]]>
Composer Philip Glass spoke to BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning ahead of the premiere of his new Kafka-inspired opera The Trial.
Glass is one of the world's most popular living composers, writing for film and the stage as well as having collaborated with artists as diverse as David Bowie, Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen, and Paul Simon over a long and distinguished career.
'My aim is to be a populist,' the composer told presenter John Humphrys. 'I looked around at my friends who are painters, film-makers and writers and they had large audiences, but not the composers. I couldn't figure that out. People didn't have their music in our consciousness, and I thought there was something absolutely wrong about that.
'My generation were the ones that rebelled so to speak. We rebelled at the restrictions that were put on us by academic music. When I came back from living in New York I was 30 years old and I began playing again and finding my audience. I didn't play in a concert hall for five years. My music wasn't considered important enough to do that. By '76 I had an opera - Einstein on the Beach. That happened in an extremely short period of time, which tells me there was a vacuum existing in the music world that was ready to be filled. That style of music has seeped into commercial music. You hear it in films, you hear it when you're watching ads on the television.'
Glass believes that artists should be given more assistance by the state: 'In my country and here as well, I don't think there's a lot of government support for artists; you may support institutions, but that's not the people who work in the place. I was able to give up my day job finally when I was 41, which I thought was great [but until then] I moved furniture, I did a lot of things. We need the music of younger people. The music I'm hearing of the kids that are in their 30s is fantastic music; it's full of imagination, it seems fresh and it's enchanting music. I'm seeing a generation of composers now who are idealists in that they're not worried about making a living because they won't. They pour their hearts and souls into this stuff.'
The composer doesn't believe that audiences should concern themselves with the theory-based inner workings of his compositions: 'It's like asking a doctor to explain how the medicine works that you're taking. It doesn't matter does it? If it works, it works. How I write the music is not your concern, the question is, "Does it have an emotional shape or appeal to you?", "Does it tell you about the world in some way?"'
'I sometimes call it a nervous habit,' says Glass of continuing to write prolifically, even in his late 70s. 'What my life has taught me is that if I write the music that I believe in and I hold onto that, I will do alright.'
Listen to the full interview
Music Theatre Wales performs Philip Glass's operatic adaptation of The Trial in the Linbury Studio Theatre 10–18 October 2014. Tickets are sold out, but returns may become available.
The production is a co-commission and co-production between Music Theatre Wales, The Royal Opera, Theater Magdeburg and Scottish Opera.]]>
After the usual slow summer, the recording companies have gone into overdrive and this month's recommendations are chosen from a wide field, not least the re-issue on Warner Classics of the entire studio recordings of Maria Callas, re-mastered from the original tapes and an astonishing aural experience. Topping the charts now though is Joyce DiDonato's new album, Stella di Napoli.
DiDonato requires no introduction, and in this recording the mezzo explores some little-known reaches of the bel canto repertoire. Few singers today understand how to build the aural architecture that allows bel canto its natural expression, let alone the technique to deliver it, but DiDonato excels throughout. Each aria is delivered as an individual act of expression, alive to the text and music and this creates a fascinatingly varied recital – no mean achievement in music that in lesser hands can sound too similar. There are rich pickings and many surprises, not least alternative takes on Lammermoor (Carafa's Le nozze di Lammermoor in place of Bellini's better-known Lucia di Lammermoor) and Sonnambula (Valentini's Il sonnambulo instead of Bellini's La sonnambula), and the final prayer from Maria Stuarda in Donizetti's own reworking. A captivating and must-have disc.
Buy Stella di Napoli from the ROH online shop
Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli recently had the Wigmore Hall on its feet as he earned one of the few standing ovations that the Hall has witnessed of late. The countertenor soon debuts at the Royal Opera House in Idomeneo so this new release from him of arias by baroque composer Nicola Porpora is very timely. Accompanied by the excellent Academia Montis Regalis, you can be guaranteed an hour of absolutely sensational singing. Fagioli is a true virtuoso and it seems none of these arias holds any fear for him: the voice is distinctive and dramatic, and his technique allows him to sing astonishingly complex vocal lines with ease and abandon.
Buy Il maestro: Porpora Arias from the ROH online shop
Jonas Kaufmann is seemingly never far from the recording studio and has just released his latest album, You Mean the World to Me. A tribute to the great Richard Tauber and his Berlin contemporaries, Kaufmann offers a generous selection of song and operetta by Lehár, Stolz, Kálman and their like, and even includes a tantalizing glimpse of Korngold's Die Tote Stadt - based on this performance, what a Paul he would be! With Julia Kleiter offering stylish soprano support and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the lively baton of Jochen Rieder, it's clear Kaufmann loves this repertory and he sings it with real affection and style. It's a charmer of a disc and one you'll return to often.
Buy You Mean the World to Me from the ROH Shop
The Royal Opera House Online Shop stocks a full range of classical recordings, as well as DVDs and merchandise.]]>
Update: 13 November 2014 - Unfortunately due to matters beyond our control we are no longer able to live stream this event.
Physicist, broadcaster and musician Brian Cox is to chair a special ROH Insights session exploring the relationship between physics and music at the Royal Opera House on 24 November 2014.
Produced in collaboration with the Institute of Physics, What makes the perfect song? will feature a panel of experts from both disciplines.
'The best arias in opera have some of the simplest tunes, yet some of those arias will last for centuries while other tunes being produced now may be forgotten in a year or two, and we want to ask why,' says Royal Opera House Creative Producer Tom Nelson. 'You could never forget Luciano Pavarotti's performance of Nessun Dorma being used at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, but are there examples of contemporary songs that we will still be using as the theme tune for the 2116 World Cup? I think it's a fascinating question.'
'We will also look at the structure and lyrics of songs and ask at a scientific level whether there is something in a tune that provokes an emotional response, or just produces something catchy.'
Tickets for the event will be available exclusively to those signed up to the Royal Opera House student scheme. Tickets are very limited in number but are available to book now.]]>
'Can any of us imagine a musical world without Philip Glass?' asked Tom Service in The Guardian. Glass's music – love it or hate it – has had a profound effect not just on the world of classical music but also on pop music, film music and the broader cultural landscape.
Glass studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, but perhaps his biggest influence was the sitar player Ravi Shankar. Glass became Shankar's assistant on the soundtrack for the 1966 film Chappaqua. Glass later described how, 'I saw the possibility of using some of the technical procedures of classical Indian music with Western instruments and making a very different language. It was a way out of the cul-de-sac that Stockhausen and the Serialist composers had created.'
In the 1960s Glass studied Buddhism and it was also around this time that the movement we now know as minimalism was born. After making contact again with Steve Reich – the pair had studied together at the Juilliard School – Glass began to strip his music back to create what he called 'music with repetitive structures', such as Strung Out (1967) or Music in 12 Parts (1971–4).
'We all ended up in New York at the same time… Reich was there with his group, plus Jon Gibson, Terry Jennings, Meredith Monk and Charlemagne Palestine,' said Glass. 'Very quickly there was a group of people who were producing a radical type of music that became known as Minimalism.'
Glass's film music has earned him a clutch of awards, so it's no surprise that he's had a huge influence on other film composers, including Hans Zimmer.
David Bowie is another figure who's absorbed Glass's music – and this influence has worked both ways. Glass based two of his symphonies (no.1 and no.4) on albums by Bowie (Low and Heroes respectively), whose music in turn has been hugely influenced by Glass's minimalism.
Nico Muhly, one of today's most successful contemporary composers, studied with Glass. Muhly has said: '[Glass] is someone who knows how to control an emotional situation calmly without being hysterical. His score for The Hours is a perfect example of that, where it sets a mood for this very complicated story without insisting on anything. It's just the right amount of melancholic without being over the top.'
Einstein on the Beach (1976)
This five-hour opera is scored for synthesizers, woodwinds and voices. The four acts are divided by short scenes called 'knee plays' which include the sound of a chorus of voices counting.
The Hours (2002)
Glass's music for the 2002 film directed by Stephen Daldry won the BAFTA for Best Film Music. The film stars Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore and focuses on three women from different periods, whose lives are connected by Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway.
Music in 12 Parts
Written for voices, electric organs, flutes and saxophones, this four-hour piece was one of Glass's first and most important works. The experience of listening to the piece has been described as 'the aural equivalent of standing at the top of a giant waterfall, mesmerized by the illusion that such a rushing body of water could also appear so stable, so even.'
Symphony No. 9
While writers have been debating whether the symphony is still relevant for contemporary music, Glass has just got on with writing them – he's now written ten. His ninth was completed in 2011, and was commissioned by the Bruckner Orchester Linz.
String Quartets
The composer's five string quartets span nearly three decades, from 1966 to 1991. Glass has said: 'In an odd way, string quartets have always functioned as moments of profound introspection about both self and music, for composers. I don't really know why, but it's almost impossible to get away from it. It's the way composers of the past have thought and that's no less true of me.'
Music Theatre Wales gives the world premiere of Glass's The Trial in the Linbury Studio Theatre, running 10–18 October 2014. Tickets are sold out but returns may become available.
Music Theatre Wales takes its production of The Trial on tour around England and Wales throughout October and November. Find a performance near you.
The production is a co-commission and co-production between Music Theatre Wales, The Royal Opera, Theater Magdeburg and Scottish Opera.]]>
Music Director of The Royal Opera Antonio Pappano recently spoke to BBC Radio 3's In Tune ahead of a Season that will see him conduct seven main stage works at Covent Garden.
'I had a really good rest this summer following a non-stop 18 months that featured some very exciting and important pieces at the Royal Opera House, in Rome [with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia], La Scala and at the Salzburg Festival,' he told presenter Suzy Klein.
'For the orchestra, Anna Nicole is a big deal,' says the Music Director of the Season-opening return of Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera. 'It's hard to define what it is - jazz, pop, a pseudo-American musical idiom. It brings out something new for them. They have to find something different
He's also excited about the return of Verdi's I due Foscari after a 19-year absence from the Covent Garden stage: 'It's not often heard but it's an opera with a wonderful pathos and a wonderful relationship between a father and his son - Verdi doesn't have too many of them! It's sad from the beginning and there's very little respite. It has a darkness which I would say is akin to Simon Boccanegra, but in embryonic form.'
Plácido Domingo will sing the role of Francesco Foscari, and Antonio is looking forward to seeing the baritone inhabit a role which the Music Director sees as perfect for him: 'He needs the stage like bread and water. It brings out something that's very touching in him, something that we didn't see before as the romantic hero. Here he's caught between his duty as leader of state and trying to free his son from imprisonment and exile. He's in a terrible dilemma and to see him emote in this way is something quite beautiful.'
As well as six operas, Antonio will also conduct an orchestral concert at Covent Garden in May 2015, intended to show off the versatility of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, as well as make them more visible: 'We're doing a wonderful programme: Ravel, Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer with Anna Caterina Antonacci, Fancy Free by Bernstein and Scriabin's Le Poème de l'Extase. It should bring the roof off.'
With such a busy Season ahead, leading both The Royal Opera and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, how does he switch off?
'It's difficult for any conductor. You're involved with public relations, with sponsors and the administrative elements of the job. I lead two institutions, and they complement each other wonderfully - a symphony orchestra and the opera house. Each demands a tremendous amount of loyalty, attention, and physical energy from me. I'm very fortunate in that part of my job is meeting a lot of people and I've met so many wonderful people in the past couple of years, especially sponsors. We've got a real family at Covent Garden and in Rome. I'm really proud of that.'
Antonio has regularly commented on the importance of the arts in society, something echoed during his In Tune interview: 'The arts are always viewed with suspicion, and we have to justify ourselves - why do we get money? Poetry, beauty, theatre and drama is something that every human being needs, in one form or another. And it's a beautiful thing.'
Antonio Pappano conducts Anna Nicole, I due Foscari, Tristan und Isolde, Andrea Chénier, Król Roger, an orchestral concert and Guillaume Tell during the 2014/15 Season.]]>
The winners of the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2014 have been announced.
The awards, which have been running for 37 years, celebrate the best in recorded classical music and once again this year, a number of Royal Opera artists and recordings were shortlisted.
Jonas Kaufmann won in the solo vocal category for the second year running, this time with his recording of Schubert's Winterreise. The German tenor performed the work live at Covent Garden in April 2014.
The DVD release of The Royal Opera's Written on Skin won in the Contemporary category. This Gramophone Award follows South Bank Sky Arts and RPS Music awards for Katie Mitchell's production of George Benjamin and Martin Crimp's opera.
Other Gramophone Award winners this year include Iestyn Davies and Richard Egarr's Wigmore Hall recital recording of Arise, my Muse, and Glyndebourne's production of Ravels L'heure espagnole/L'enfant et les sortilèges double bill.
This year's winners will be presented with their awards at a ceremony in London on 17 September. See the full list of 2014 winners.
The Royal Opera House Shop stocks a full range of classical recordings, as well as DVDs and merchandise, both online and at the ROH.]]>
A number of stars from the world of opera are to perform at open air Proms in the Park concerts around the UK to celebrate the Last Night of the Proms on 13 September.
Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo is to perform in Hyde Park alongside Rufus Wainwright, Earth Wind & Fire and former Jette Parker Young Artist Pumeza Matshikiza. He will return to Covent Garden in November 2014 in Laurent Pelly's Royal Opera production of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.
Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel is to headline the Singleton Park, Swansea event, with fellow performers to be confirmed. He returns to Covent Garden alongside Vittorio in L'elisir d'amore as well as in Tim Albery's Royal Opera production of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) in February 2015.
American tenor Noah Stewart is to perform alongside Katherine Jenkins at Glasgow Green. Noah made his Royal Opera debut in 2012 and returns to Covent Garden in Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's Royal Opera production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
As well as live acts, the family events will feature a special nationwide singalong. As well as London, Swansea and Glasgow, a performance will also take place in Belfast, with the line-up still to be confirmed.
Tickets to Proms in the Park events can be purchased from the BBC Proms website, with event times varying.]]>
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss, we've published a post a week offering a closer look at the composer and his work.
Our A-Z of Richard Strauss has examined - among other subjects - the debate over his Nazi sympathies, why he relished writing for sopranos but was less than generous to tenors, and the sneaky inclusion of yodelling in his operas. It was written by author and musicologist Gavin Plumley, formerly the blogger behind Entartete Musik.
In case you missed them, here's the series in full:
A is for Pauline de Ahna
Strauss's wife inspired some of the greatest roles he wrote.
B is for Johannes Brahms
The elder composer hugely influenced Strauss, but was critical of his fan's musical style.
C is for Copyright
Strauss was a fierce defender of composers' rights, and wrote a song cycle lampooning the publishing industry.
D is for Dresden
The bombing of his favourite city in World War II left Strauss distraught and inspired one of his greatest final works.
E is for Esel
A donkey ('Esel' in German) was the left-field subject of Strauss's comic final opera, Des Esels Schatten.
F is for Franz Strauss
Richard Strauss's father was a famed horn player who had a tempestuous relationship with Richard Wagner.
G is for Garmisch
The composer created a sanctuary from the outside world high in the Alps.
H is for Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Richard Strauss's long-standing librettist often clashed with the composer, but Strauss revered him nevertheless.
I is for Intermezzo
Strauss's eighth opera explores similar themes to Die Frau ohne Schatten, albeit in a lighter tone.
J is for Ben Jonson
One of the Jacobean playwright's works inspired Strauss's sole collaboration with Stefan Zweig.
K is for Kaiser
Kaiser Wilhelm II nearly banned Strauss's opera Salome, so shocking was its content.
L is for Lieder
Song works book-ended Strauss's career, with his first written aged 6 and his last aged 84.
M is for Munich
The Bavarian capital was Strauss's hometown, and where his grandfather's brewery is still based.
N is for Nazi
Strauss was president of the Nazi's music bureau but to what extent did he support Hitler?
O is for Ovid
The Roman poet's work inspired a number of Strauss's works, including Ariadne auf Naxos.
P is for Lorenzo Da Ponte
The 18th century librettist-turned-New York grocer da Ponte wrote some of Strauss's favourite libretti, and in part inspired Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten.
Q is for Querschnitt
With an ever-watching eye on his bank account, Strauss created and released a series of orchestral highlights ('Querschnitt' in German) from his operas.
R is for Alexander Ritter
Without Ritter's radicalizing influence, Strauss would have never written revolutionary works like Salome and Elektra.
S is for Salzburg
Mozart might be the city's most famous son, but Strauss and the Salzburg Festival ensure it remains relevant in today's musical world.
T is for Tenor
The composer was less than generous to opera's traditional heroes in his writing, and couldn't resist mocking Puccini's tenorific tropes.
U is for Unheimlich
So uncanny ('Unheimlich' in German) were Strauss's expressive skills, that he boasted he could even describe a knife and fork in music.
V is for Vienna
Wearied by war, the once glorious imperial hub became home to a broken society during Strauss's time there.
W is for Waltz
Richard Strauss shared Johann Strauss II's fondness for triple time.
X is for Xylophone
Strauss is often the favourite composer of percussionists, offering plenty of things to hit, chime and ring.
Y is for Yodel
The composer's Alpine home influenced the inclusion of yodelling in two of his works.
Z is for Stefan Zweig
The Austrian author's operatic collaboration with Strauss was one of his final works created in Germany, before fleeing from the Nazis to Brazil.
During the 2013/14 Season the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth was celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten and Ariadne auf Naxos.]]>
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian writer.
At the height of his literary fame in the 1920s and 30s, Zweig was one of Europe's most popular writers. Though not as well known by modern audiences, his work has seen a resurgence of interest of late as the inspiration for Wes Anderson's film The Grand Budapest Hotel, which starred Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, among others.
Following the death of Hugo von Hofmannsthal in 1929, Richard Strauss was seeking a new librettist. Zweig was the ideal candidate, well-established and with an ability to move between fiction, non-fiction and drama.
Due to the political situation in Germany at the time, they were only able to complete one opera together, beginning work on Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) in the early 1930s. By the time that Hitler came to power in January 1933, the piano score and the orchestration of the first of the opera's three acts was 'as good as finished'. As a Jew, however, Zweig was not welcome within Reich culture. But the Nazis were stuck: could they possibly ban an opera written by Richard Strauss, the president of the Reichsmusikkammer? Eventually the decision came from Hitler himself, who noted what he perceived as a 'slur' against the Reich, but allowed the performances to go ahead.
It was, however, to be Zweig's last stand. A letter from Strauss to him was intercepted by the Gestapo, in which the composer asked Zweig to begin work on a second opera. Seeing this as a clear affront to their authority, the Nazis condemned Die schweigsame Frau and terminated Strauss and Zweig's collaboration. In 1934, Zweig fled to Britain, living first in London and then in Bath, before moving to New York in 1940 and finally, later that year, to Rio de Janeiro, where he and his wife killed themselves by taking a barbiturate overdose.
'Something else was beginning', Zweig had written in his autobiography Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday), 'a new time, and who knew how many hells and purgatories we still had to go through to reach it?' But on the last pages of his memoir, Zweig had also offered a note of hope, not unlike the sunset described in the last of Strauss's Four Last Songs. 'Every shadow', he offered, 'is also the child of light, and only those who have known the light and the dark, have seen war and peace, rise and fall, have truly lived their lives'.
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer has been celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (which ran until 13 July).]]>
Living in Garmisch, Richard Strauss would have heard a lot of folk music in the surrounding countryside, including the famous Alpine yodel, which makes appearances in a couple of his scores.
First, rather fittingly, there is a yodel in Eine Alpensinfonie, played by an oboe in a scene entitled 'Auf der Alm' (In the Alpine pasture). The yodel crops up, slightly more surprisingly, in Arabella, when the Fiakermilli, the belle of the Coachman's ball in Vienna, sings 'Die Wiener Herrn verstehen sich auf die Astronomie'.
Strauss mimics the yodel's characteristic shifts between chest and head voice in the Fiakermilli's flurry of coloratura effects, wowing the other ball guests.
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer has been celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (which ran until 13 July).]]>
Moses und Aron is Arnold Schoenberg's masterpiece. He composed the first two acts in one intense period from 1930 to 1932, pouring all his thoughts on the compositional process of serialism into the music. The opera is as much a testament to the possibilities of serialism as it is a crucible of Schoenberg's philosophy on God – indeed, to Schoenberg the two were intrinsically linked. Such was the importance of the work as personal and public statement that Schoenberg did not allow its performance in what he considered its unfinished state (he never wrote the music for his libretto of Act III).
So what is serialism? Since Schoenberg's time it has gone on to be used in many different ways, but for Schoenberg it was a way of structuring the 12 chromatic notes – a development of the tonal structuring that predominated in Western music before Schoenberg's innovations. Rather than, for example, a major scale, the way the notes are used is determined by a tone row. A tone row is a specific ordering of all 12 notes – for example, the rising chromatic scale is a tone row, albeit not a very interesting one.
The tone row has several permutations that all count as the row, created through techniques that draw on the ingenious devices Bach used in his contrapuntal music. The row can be stated plainly on each of the 12 notes (Prime). The intervals in a row can be turned upside down (Inversion) so that, for example, a major 3rd up becomes a major 3rd down. Finally, all the Prime and Inversions can be stated backwards (retrograde), giving 48 forms of the row in total. The notes do not need to sound individually and can be stated at the same time – but the order of the chords must be derived from one of the forms of the row.
Schoenberg conceived serialism as a natural progression in Western music, the next step on from the theory of Gesamtkunstwerk (complete art work) that Wagner had introduced. Like Wagner, Schoenberg was strongly influenced by the writings of figures such as Goethe and Schopenhauer – for example, Goethe's idea of the Urpflanze (archetypal plant) of which all plants are variations is a very simple model for the tone row. For Schoenberg, serialism was much more than a technique for giving structural unity to a piece (although this was a key concern) – he saw it as a way to use the uniquely expressive qualities of music to reflect the innate nature of the universe.
Unlike Schoenberg's previous serialist opera Von heute auf morgen, which uses two separate (but related) rows, Moses und Aron is derived from a single row. Schoenberg had initially been worried that a single row could not provide enough material for a work as large as an opera, but found that 'the more familiar I became with this [row] the more easily I could draw themes from it'. Indeed, it's astonishing that the rich and hugely imaginative music of Moses und Aron is so rigorously controlled – but look in the score and it's there. While you might not always (or even more than occasionally) recognize the row, there is a palpable sense that all the music is connected to the same idea, which grows more powerful with repeated listening.
Serialism was never a mathematical problem for Schoenberg. He wrote, 'I cannot often enough warn against the overrating of analysis since it invariably leads to what I have always fought against: the knowledge of how something is made; whereas I have always tried to promote the knowledge of what something is.' But of course how Moses und Aron was made makes it what it is: a highly ambitious effort to describe the impossibility of describing the universe, which, astonishingly achieves that ambition.
Welsh National Opera performs Moses und Aron on the Royal Opera House's main stage 25–26 July 2014. Tickets are still available.]]>
Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron is unknown musical territory for many – true too for most if not all of Schoenberg's music and that of his fellow Second Viennese School composers, Berg and Webern. The case is the same for recent operas in the Linbury Studio Theatre, such as Quartett, Through His Teeth or The Killing Flower. More mainstream is Berg's Wozzeck, recently performed on the Covent Garden main stage by The Royal Opera; but even this has not become as familiar as operas from the same time or even after, such as Britten's Peter Grimes. Why is it that some works appeal more immediately and more broadly than others?
When we hear the phrase 'we know what we like', it often means 'we like what we know'. The new is almost always more draining than the familiar as we need to concentrate on how to assimilate what is strange and unknown. And because human nature is generally risk-averse, it means we can be slow to accept or even actively resistant to the unfamiliar. The effort of comprehending the unfamiliar can sometimes be more than we want to invest – especially if we expect to use culture for relaxation or diversion.
The challenge of convention and familiarity is one part of how art works: the emotional effect and the intellectual interest can come from expectations we have of one thing happening, but the work doing something slightly or dramatically different. That deviation from our expectations provokes a reaction – and some people are open to more provocation than others, which contributes to our personal tastes. But how does this work in regards to music?
Music is built on a use of pitch and rhythm that we assimilate from our cultural background. Although it is often stated that music is a universal language, it clearly isn't. The same basic elements can be put together in very different ways, and require different ways of listening. We need to learn and become familiar with what these conventions are. Then we can get 'inside' the sound and follow what the composer (or equivalent) is doing with more confidence.
When we don't know the conventions, the result may be intriguing or frightening: one person's lovely sound is another's awful racket. Looking back over the centuries demonstrates how works we consider mainstream were once heard as disturbing:
On Beethoven and his Seventh Symphony, 1825: 'It is a composition in which the author has indulged a great deal of disagreeable eccentricity… Altogether, it seems to have been intended as a kind of enigma – we almost said a hoax.'
On Verdi and Macbeth, 1850: 'The unfortunate man is incapable of real melody – his airs are such as a man born deaf would compose by calculation of the distances of musical notes and the intervals between them.'
On Wagner and Tannhäuser, 1861: 'I believe that I could write tomorrow something similar, inspired by my cat walking down the keyboard of the piano.'
This is not to say that anything we don't like will become a much-loved favourite. Far from it – music can still be well or badly done wherever it comes from. The point is that so many elements go into listening to music new to us, that we can be worn down by the sheer overwhelming novelty of the experience.
Ultimately, everyone in the audience will have their own response, made up of how much is familiar or unfamiliar, how much they enjoy a challenge, how alert or tired they are. They may be engrossed or bored, enlivened or enraged: the best thing an audience can do is respond in whatever way they feel. But sometimes, a little context picked up beforehand – through discovering the story, listening to the composer's music, or through reading others' responses to the work – can be enough to counteract the alienation created by the unknown to make a lot of difference to our enjoyment of the performance.
Welsh National Opera performs Moses und Aron on the Royal Opera House's main stage 25–26 July 2014. Tickets are still available.]]>
Richard Strauss employed a wide range of percussion instruments in his works, including the xylophone.
Although the score of Salome – one of the composer's most famous operas – contains no mention of the xylophone, a Holz- und Strohinstrument (wood and straw instrument) is listed. The name of this precursor to the xylophone describes the crude way in which the wooden bars of the instrument rested on straw supports. Such a design may suggest delicate, restrained usage but Strauss was characteristically demanding of its player, writing streams of semiquaver scales for the frenzied climax of the 'Dance of the Seven Veils'.
Salome is far from being Strauss's most extravagant score when it comes to such percussive effects. Die Frau ohne Schatten, for instance, boasts a glockenspiel, xylophone (listed under its modern name), five Chinese gongs, cymbals, side drum, rute (bound birch twigs), sleigh bells, bass drum, large tenor drum, triangle, tambourine, two pairs of castanets and tam tam. All these instruments compete for pit space with the glass harmonica, two celestas, and two harps; as well as the wind machine, thunder machine and four tam tams off stage. It adds up to a gigantic orchestra of over 100. 'It is extraordinary that Strauss had a brain that could conceive all [the opera] and a heart to express it', said conductor Semyon Bychkov in a recent interview.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer has been celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (which ran until 13 July).]]>
Everything that goes on in this building is connected to music. Whether we are sewing costumes, designing posters or sweeping the stage, everything that we do is channelled towards presenting great performances of opera and ballet; and both of these art forms would be nothing without notes on a sheet of paper (or screen).
The Music Library is a vital part of the Royal Opera House, working across all music for our productions. Library staff prepare and maintain all the scores required by conductors, singers, stage managers, staff directors, Learning and Participation, Jette Parker Young Artists, Development and technical departments and The Royal Ballet (both at home and on tour). They also order or create new instrumental parts for the orchestral musicians, mark up all musical directions and provide a wealth of knowledge on everything musical.
Robin Gordon-Powell has worked in the Music Library for almost thirteen years, freelancing for most of that time, but providing maternity cover for the past year. As the hands marking up a score in one of our Season Appeal images, we interviewed him about the Season ahead.
Robin, what are you most looking forward to in the 2014/15 Season?
Definitely Król Roger. It's never been done here before and it's a lovely, mystical work. Karol Szymanowski is an amazing composer and it's a brand new production so will be really interesting to see. It's being sung in Polish and my colleague Julie Davies is currently marking up the English translation into the full score for Tony Pappano who is conducting.
I'm also looking forward to I due Foscari, which was last seen here in 1995. It's another new co-production (with Los Angeles Opera, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia, and Theater an der Wien) with Plácido Domingo singing the role of Francesco Foscari. Early Verdi: you could scarcely get further away from the sensitive exoticism of Szymanowski! I'm currently marking up the parts and Tony Pappano's score so that things like dynamics, accents and phrasing all correspond – it's vital that they have the same markings, so that time is not taken up needed in rehearsals to sort out the basic points of the music.
What's been a memorable production for you in 2013/14?
I loved all of the Strauss operas, but Die Frau ohne Schatten was especially memorable, as I'd never seen it before. I spent ages working on the horn parts – four of the eight horn players alternate between French Horns and Tenor Tubas – and I had to make up new, legible, transposed parts for them. I was very involved with the music, which was glorious, and sat in on several of the purely orchestral rehearsals. As a conductor myself (in my 'spare' time), it was tremendous to watch, and work closely with Semyon Bychkov, who is a very intelligent and articulate conductor, and to see how he rehearsed.
The Music Library is managed by Tony Rickard, pictured below.
What's next for you at the Royal Opera House?
My maternity cover position is soon coming to an end, so I'll be working fewer days a week on a project to create a new database of everything we have in the Library and our archives, which are scattered around the building, as well as off-site. Our current paper catalogue only reflects a proportion of our stock and has grown up on a somewhat ad-hoc basis; it's not really working as well as it should. I'm looking forward to starting work on that, on newly developed software which I shall have to learn — although I shall probably be working on my own in a different office, and will miss the company (and occasional singing) of my colleagues in the Library. In my life outside of the Royal Opera House I edit and publish music of – mainly – Sir Arthur Sullivan, alongside conducting when I can.
Everybody has a part to play. Play yours today.
It costs, on average, £33 for bowings to be added to a violin part. Please give a donation today to help support the vital work of Robin and his colleagues in the Music Library.]]>
H.K. Gruber has never been afraid to be different. He has spent nearly fifty years at the forefront of European music successfully evading categorization. Whether madcap, melancholic, macabre, melodic or simply silly, Gruber's music is always and absolutely individual.
Gruber's musical life began in the Vienna Boys' Choir. He knew from a young age that he would compose, but the choirmaster, inspired by the young Gruber's musicality and sheer size, suggested he learn the double bass. After graduating from the Vienna Hochschule he played with two orchestras and by 1969 was principal with the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he stayed until 1997 – a decision, Gruber says, that enabled him always to remain independent as a composer.
The orchestra turned out to be the ideal environment in which to explore the extremes of his colleagues' instruments, while his double bass provided the perfect conduit through which to discover the inner workings of jazz. No less significant was Gruber's work as an actor and singer, experience that fuels both his text-based work and the sense of theatrical spectacle that pervades his output.
In the late 1960s Gruber and his friends Kurt Schwertsik and Otto M. Zykan founded the musical ensemble MOB art & ton ART, to perform their own music and that of composers they admired. In all of their compositions they were reacting against the avant-garde ethos preached by the Darmstadt school of Stockhausen and Boulez – music that for Gruber and his friends had simply no appeal. Though the ensemble was short-lived, its performances were enough to firmly establish these young composers as a new school of contemporary music – jokingly termed 'the Third Viennese School', in affectionate homage to the Second of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.
So what did Gruber and his 'school' do that was so distinctive? First and foremost was their move 'forwards' to tonality, as Gruber likes to term it – quite the opposite direction from the total serialism dictated by Darmstadt. Gruber's love of the sometimes cabaret-like music of Weill and Eisler, coupled with his particular talent as a melodist, have encouraged him to find ways of building tonal music on serialist scaffolding. The results, combining lyricism with a rewardingly intricate structure, often win Gruber's works comparisons to Berg's beloved Violin Concerto. This combination of melody, ingenious structuring and highly imaginative orchestration was enough to soon get Gruber noticed by the leading musical figures of our time.
Gruber rose to fame on the back of his 'pan-demonium' Frankenstein!!, first performed in 1978 by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Simon Rattle. The work is an adaptation of a semi-improvisational suite Gruber created back in 1970 as an accompaniment to recorded extracts of Austrian poet H.C. Artmann's macabre children's collection allerleirausch ('All kinds of noise'). Gruber's music, especially in the tightened later version, is as subversive as the poetry, playful, childlike and innocent on the surface (with many of the instrumentalists required to double up on toy instruments such as the swanee whistle and harmonica horn) but with a deeply unsettling undercurrent. Frankenstein!! remains Gruber's most popular work, while Gruber himself has performed the chansonnier role more than 1,000 times.
Amid concertos for violinist Ernst Kovacic (…aus schatten duft gewebt and Nebelsteinmusik), trumpeter Håken Hardenberger (Aerial and Busking) and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, further Rattle commissions (Dancing in the Dark for the Vienna Philharmonic) and operas (Der Herr Nordwind for Zürich Opera and Tales from the Vienna Woods for the Bregenz Festival), Gruber continues to conduct and perform around the world. He champions not only his own work but also that of his favourite composers, including Weill, Eisler, Schwertsik, Gottfried von Einem and James MacMillan.
Gloria – A Pigtale is Amanda Holden's translation of Gruber's Gloria von Jaxtberg, first performed at the 1994 Huddersfield Festival. Like all Gruber's works, it melds a wide range of forms – cabaret, Strauss waltzes, jazz, burlesque – to create something that is unmistakeably Gruber. Vastly entertaining, beautifully structured and sharply subversive, Gloria is a characteristic work from this most idiosyncratic of composers.
Gloria – A Pigtale runs until 19 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is a co-production with Mahogany Opera Group, Bregenz Festival and Buxton Festival.
The premiere of Gruber's new opera, Tales from the Vienna Woods, will be given at the Bregenz Festival on 23 July 2014. Find out more here.]]>
Details of the first three BBC Radio 3 broadcasts of Royal Opera productions for Autumn 2014/15 have been announced, with more dates and titles to be confirmed.
Verdi's I due Foscari will be broadcast at a date TBC. The production will see Plácido Domingo head the cast under the baton of Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano. Though one of Verdi's saddest operas, the music contains contains exhilarating foretastes of Verdi's later style, including virtuosic writing for heroine Lucrezia.
Mozart's Idomeneo will be broadcast at a date TBC. The production stars Matthew Polenzani, Franco Fagioli, Sophie Bevan and Malin Byström and will be conducted by Marc Minkowski, making his Royal Opera debut. The opera features some of Mozart's most varied and inventive music, including the heroic 'Fuor del mar', tender duet 'S'io non moro a questi accenti' and the furious vocal acrobatics of 'D'Oreste, d'Ajace'.
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde will be broadcast at a date TBC. The production stars Stephen Gould, Nina Stemme, John Tomlinson and Sarah Connolly. Antonio Pappano will conduct the opera, which changed the course of western music through its revolutionary score.
Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore will be broadcast live on 29 November 2014 at 6.45pm. The production stars Lucy Crowe, Vittorio Grigolo and Bryn Terfel. Former Jette Parker Young Artist Daniele Rustioni will conduct the comic opera, which features beautiful music including the iconic aria 'Una furtiva lagrima'.
Other operas to be broadcast during the 2014/15 Season include Andrea Chenier, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Król Roger, and Guillaume Tell. Dates for these will be announced in due course.
All of the titles and broadcast dates listed above are subject to change. Please check BBC Radio 3's Opera on 3 website for the latest schedule.
The Royal Opera House and the BBC are partners. Find out more.]]>
Cabaret's parade of basement burlesque, satire and circus acts has long roots. This art form: alternative, diverse, and – above all – independent, has often intertwined with opera; H.K. Gruber's cabaret opera Gloria – A Pigtale is just the latest in a long line of cabaret-inspired works.
Cabaret's origins lie in late-18th-century Paris, where the fashion emerged for singers to perform in the streets and in cafes. It was more than a passing fad, and within half a century performers were categorizing themselves into different styles: audiences could seek out a gommeur ('gummer'), or a diseur (recitalist), a gambillard (leg-mover) or a fantaisiste. An 1867 change in the law in allowed performers to appear in costume and led to a proliferation of so-called café-concerts, until in 1881 cabaret's golden age dawned with the founding of the Chat Noir.
The dream of the Chat Noir's founders was to foster an environment in which bohemian artists could intermingle with their bourgeois audience. They more or less realized their dream, and their model of small venue and informal atmosphere was widely imitated throughout France and its colonies. In the belle époque era the great artists of the day thrived in such places; for example, Erik Satie (whose many café-concert works included his famous Gymnopédies) seemed to spend his life in one café-concert or the other.
German cabaret began as an imitator, but with the spur of a 1902 tour by the great diseuse Yvette Guilbert it fast coalesced into a distinct form. German poets and musicians were captivated by the potential of using popular songs to serious ends, far removed from the pomp of state-sanctioned works. Berlin became the cabaret centre, with Ernst von Wolzogen's cabaret Überbrettl leading the way. Arnold Schoenberg – whose early exposure to music had been mostly through eavesdropping on cafe performers – had his first music job conducting at Überbrettl 1901–3 and composed a collection of Brettl-Lieder for the in-house performers. The sense of irony of the diseuse and the intimate, ad-hoc music setting of cabaret was an unmistakable influence on his 1912 masterpiece Pierrot lunaire.
German cabaret came into its own in the interwar Weimar Republic, blossoming under the Republic's increased liberality and bolstered by an influx of American jazz musicians. It was in this period that Marlene Dietrich shot to international fame with her portrayal of the cabaret singer Lola-Lola in Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). Her subtle, ironical-tragic delivery of Friedrich Hollaender's songs was genre-defining.
Kurt Weill never wrote specifically for cabaret – oddly, given the influence he would have on the genre. His 1928 Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) was both informed by cabaret and immeasurably influential on it: the use of ballads and the emphasis on Bertolt Brecht's text demonstrate Weill's interest in the genre. Subsequent cabaret performers went on to mine its songs for their own acts – 'Mack the Knife' the most famous example. Weill's wife Lotte Lenya, originally an actor, was hugely celebrated for her declamatory performances in the roles Weill wrote for her, including in Dreigroschenoper, Mahagonny and Die sieben Tödsünden.
Songs by Weill and his contemporary Hanns Eisler became famous as the core repertory of cabaret singers, but cabaret music found its way into opera as well. Voguish Zeitopern (operas of the time) sought to speak directly to their audiences through the use of contemporary settings, and often jumped on the cabaret bandwagon. Perhaps the most brilliant examples are Ernst Krenek's 1927 Jonny spielt auf (Jonny plays on), in which the African-American musician Jonny and chanteuse Anita attempt to lure the lofty composer Max from his glacial mountain (literally), and Max Brand's 1929 Maschinist Hopkins (Engineer Hopkins), where in one astonishing scene singer Nell and her lover/husband factory owner Bill enjoy a brief ascent to power to the strains of a Black Bottom routine played by the Brand New Band.
The Nazis' rise to power terminated cabaret's golden age, a twilight expertly captured in Kander and Ebb's Cabaret. Cabaret has never regained the same social prominence, but its legacy lives on, in contemporary cabaret, in musical theatre, alternative comedy, Las Vegas, and the cabaret songs themselves.
Gloria – A Pigtale opens tonight and runs until 19 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is a co-production with Mahogany Opera Group, Bregenz Festival and Buxton Festival.
Strauss is a common German surname. Richard shares it, of course, with the Viennese family who came to dominate dance music during the 19th century, first with Johann Strauss I, then with his son Johann Strauss II and his slightly less famous brothers.
While not related, Richard Strauss maintained his namesakes' predilection for triple time. He frequently uses waltz forms in his operas and both Salome's 'Dance of the Seven Veils' and Elektra's final triumphant dance swing into three-four time. The younger Johann Strauss's widow was present when Salome had its Austrian premiere in Graz, in the same room as luminaries including Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.
And then, of course, there's Der Rosenkavalier, which is set in 18th-century Vienna, but sounds much more like the Golden Age of Johann Strauss II, the time in which the drama of Strauss's later opera Arabella unfolds. The charm of the waltz permeates Der Rosenkavalier and gives the piece an aura of melancholy beauty; the opera was a huge success on its premiere in 1911, and became one of Strauss's most popular works.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series.
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer was celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (which ran until 13 July).]]>
Like many composers and artists before him, Richard Strauss felt himself drawn towards Vienna during the first decades of the 20th century.
The imperial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been the centre of musical creativity in Europe for over 150 years. Strauss's collaboration with the Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal to the city made Vienna even more attractive to the composer, and the two set both Der Rosenkavalier and Arabella there.
Strauss moved to the city after World War I to take up the directorship of the Staatsoper, a position previously held by Gustav Mahler. But the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a consequence of its defeat in the War had turned the former imperial hub into the capital city of a small, landlocked republic. While Strauss and his colleague Franz Schalk oversaw a happy period in the Staatsoper's history, the premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten in Vienna on 10 October 1919 fell on stony ground. Conceived before the horrors of the war, and the termination of an opulent empire, it was first performed to a broken society, wearied by the excesses of successive emperors and empresses. It would be the only opera Strauss chose to debut in Vienna during his tenure at the Staatsoper.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series.
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (until 13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Best show down since Bette Davis & Joan Crawford #RivalQueens #ROHMaria @RoyalOperaHouse — John Johnston (@JohnVecchio) July 5, 2014
#ROHMaria provides a dramatically weak study of power which didn't respect the audience's right to the best presentation of this work. — Attila (@attilalondon) July 5, 2014
#ROHMaria provides a psychologically astute study of power which respected the piece's historic context without making it a museum piece. — Tom Oxenham (@tomoxenham) July 5, 2014
#ROHMaria yesterday night, might just well start to really enjoy Donizetti/bel canto. @JoyceDiDonato and Giannattasio were amazing! — Aymeric (@LaLogedAymeric) July 6, 2014
Bel canto nirvana #ROHMaria. Three principals perfectly matched, with Ismael Jordi more than holding his own vs the 2 Queens! — Nick Macrae (@violanick) July 5, 2014
In operatic heaven vocally. But dear God, the production is an absolute mess. #ROHmaria — Mark (@RestrictedView) July 5, 2014
Still on a high after last night's #ROHMaria! Can't wait for 2 more! Maybe I need to book more? Hopefully booers won't be back. #ROHstuarda — Fedja Hadrovich (@Hadrovich) July 6, 2014
Many reasons to hear #ROHMaria especially the wonderful @JoyceDiDonato @cargiannattasio and Ismael Jordi. Very few reasons to see it though. — Mark Baker (@1630revello) July 5, 2014
#ROHmaria @RoyalOperaHouse was stunning - until the last scene was just given away without definite end. Why? — Thomas Obitz (@thobitz) July 5, 2014
Well @JoyceDiDonato @roseandfriends were SENSATIONAL tonight - booing of production over the top though #ROHmaria — Tara Persaud (@tarapersaud) July 5, 2014
Wig-raising, shirt-ripping, things-throwing catfighting in da house. Acting lifted from Dinasty but sadly not its styling #ROHmaria — Andres Rial (@AJRG620) July 5, 2014
The production of #ROHMaria wasn't wonderful, but the minimalist decor allows us to concentrate on the psychological drama. — Jane Ennis (@leonora1) July 6, 2014
What did you think of Maria Stuarda? Maria Stuarda runs until 18 July 2014. Tickets are still available. A co-production with Polish National Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. Generous philanthropic support from Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Susan and John Singer and Michael Hartnall.]]>
Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden - Elektra (Deutsche Grammophon)
Elektra has been lucky in the studio, so much so that a new contender for the throne has to have some special attributes. Does Christian Thielemann have what it takes? Yes, in short. The Dresden Staatskapelle plays for Thielemann with a savage grace. Tempi are not rushed but tension ebbs and flows at key moments, details are exemplary and illuminating, and where horror is needed it lurks just below the surface: the stomach-churning procession that heralds Klytämnestra's entry for example, or the cumulative explosion of Elektra's final dance. Orchestrally this recording is up there with the best. In the casting department, we are spoiled by René Pape's rock-solid, implacable Orest, Anne Schwanewilms's magnificently neurotic Chrysothemis, and Waltraud Meier's compellingly sung - and acted - Klytämnestra. Evelyn Herlitzius is Europe's go-to Elektra and in this live performance her commitment is total, her attack fearless and the occasional misfires doesn't derail her success. With the maids and other small roles well sung, there's no weak link and the eruption of applause at the conclusion tells of an astonishingly intense night. I was unable to break off listening, and I can't really pay this recording a greater compliment.
René Jacobs and the B'Rock Orchestra - Orlando (Archiv Opera)
If you need a palate cleanser after the horrors of Elektra, look no further than René Jacobs' new recording of Handel's Orlando. A counter tenor turned conductor, Jacobs has made recordings of a huge range of baroque music. In opera he is the perfect singer's conductor and, in the studio, he retains an exhilarating sense of theatre throughout. Birds sing, winds howl, but never at the expense of the musical experience, which is perfectly judged. The star name on the cast list is Bejun Mehta, who takes the title role. Mehta's Orlando won plaudits at the Royal Opera House in 2007 when he led the revival of this production (in 2003 he had sung Medoro to Alice Coote's Orlando). Technically assured and dramatically involved from the get-go, it is a very welcome document to have his performance capture on disc. Beyond Mehta the cast is superb, with Jacobs regular Sunhae Im as Dorinda and the excellent Sophie Karthäuser as Angelica. The oddly named B'Rock Orchestra prove themselves an exemplary period band. This brings the number of commercially recorded Orlandos in the catalogue to three, and I would happily place this new recording in pole position.
Anna Bonitatibus - Semiramide (Sony Music)
When Mehta sang Orlando with The Royal Opera, his Medoro was Anna Bonitatibus. A regular and acclaimed Cherubino in David McVicar's Le nozze di Figaro, the mezzo is blessed with a richly expressive voice enlivened with a quick and attractive vibrato. Sony Music has lavishly packed a two-CD set of Ms Bonitatibus in a range of arias all taken from operas inspired by Semiramis, the legendary Assyrian queen. Many of us know Rossini's take on this (and Bonitatibus gives a brilliantly sung 'Bel raggio lusinghier') but much of this repertory is unknown and several of the tracks amount to world premiere recordings. Covering well over a century of music, this is an extraordinary document exceptionally performed by both the mezzo and the excellent Accademia degli Astrusi and La Stagione Armonica under Federico Ferri. A serious achievement, both musically and academically.
What recently released recordings would you recommend?
The Royal Opera House Online Shop stocks a full range of classical recordings, as well as DVDs and merchandise.]]>
Unheimlich is German for uncanny.
It is a word that appears in the librettos for many of Richard Strauss's operas, including Elektra, and it is a fitting word to describe the many eerie orchestral effects Strauss created to tell these stories in microscopic orchestral detail. Flutter-tonguing woodwind and brass depict a flock of sheep in his tone poem Don Quixote, the wind audibly howls and haunts Herod in Salome, the 'silver rose' music of Der Rosenkavalier glitters, and we hear Daphne's transformation from nymph to laurel tree as much as see it.
Interestingly, given the Freudian themes of Die Frau ohne Schatten, The uncanny is also a psychoanalytic concept describing an instance where something can be both familiar and yet alien at the same time, causing cognitive dissonance and a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange.
So proud was Strauss of his expressive skills with the orchestra, that the composer boasted that he could even describe a knife and fork in music!
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series.
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Richard Strauss had a natural affinity for the soprano voice, unsurprising, given his wife Pauline de Ahna's talents, but he has often been accused of lack of generosity towards tenors.
Herod's vocal lines in Salome are particularly cruel, if fittingly exaggerated, which was a trend Strauss continued in Elektra with the brief appearance of Klytämnestra's lover Aegisth. In Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss sends up his contemporary Puccini's favouring of the tenor voice during the Italian tenor's aria in Act I.
However, this year, The Royal Opera performs two Strauss operas which feature extraordinary parts for tenors – the Emperor in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos – for whom Strauss provides some of his most ardent melodies.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series.
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Alexander Ritter (1833–1896) was a German musician, composer and a friend of Richard Strauss.
They met in Meiningen and Ritter was keen to push the young Strauss in more radical directions than his established conservative diet of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms.
Ritter supported the 'new music' of Liszt and Wagner - to whose niece he was married - and felt that Strauss should be writing tone poems. By the time Ritter moved to Munich in 1886, Strauss was already hard at work on Aus Italien, his first symphonic fantasy. The pair travelled to Bayreuth together to visit Liszt's grave and to hear Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal.
While Strauss never shared Ritter's passion for Catholicism, he followed his (and Wagner's) philosophical lead by reading the works of Schopenhauer, which inspired Strauss's first opera Guntram (1894). Ritter died two years later, but his influence remained, even though Strauss turned his attentions towards Nietzsche, Wagner's arch enemy.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (now ended) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne are still available.]]>
The business-minded Richard Strauss was keen to make his operas work well financially. But they were often tricky to produce, with their lavish orchestrations and highly complex scores, so Strauss went about creating a series of orchestral highlights that could be performed outside the opera house.
First came Salomes Tanz, a concert version of the 'Dance of the Seven Veils' from Salome. The gorgeous waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier were also stripped of their narrative and published as two Walzerfolge (or waltz sequences), before Strauss and the Polish conductor Artur Rodziński produced an additional suite from the opera. Strauss also created a Symphonisches Fantasie from Die Frau ohne Schatten and separately published the interludes from Intermezzo, all testaments to his keen eye on the coffers.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
'We need new instruments very badly… musicians should take up this question in deep earnest with the help of machinery specialists.' So wrote French composer Edgard Varèse in 1916, a man championed by many as the father of electronic music and dubbed 'the stratospheric colossus of sound' by author and fervent fan Henry Miller.
In the early decades of the 20th century, composers were drawn to the possibilities afforded by new technology. Groups such as the Futurists rejected instrumental and compositional conventions in favour of new sound-worlds, placing new value on 'noise'. This ethos was in part driven from a desire to reflect the industrial age of the 20th century. So fervent was their aim that they produced a manifesto, in which they stated their desire to 'present the musical soul of the masses, of the great factories, of the railways, of the transatlantic liners, of the battleships, of the automobiles and airplanes'.
As technology advanced, new instruments were invented, such as the Ondes Martenot, which attracted the attention of influential composer Olivier Messiaen, who began using it in 1937 (his opera Saint-François d'Assise calls for three of them). But it was arguably the invention of magnetic audio tape and the developments in recording technology that followed World War II, that gave electronic music the push that would eventually lead to it being embraced by the mainstream. This has ultimately culminated in the success of artists as diverse as Daft Punk, Radiohead and Kraftwerk. Though apparently far removed from classical music, these artists employ the same technology and techniques that were pioneered by the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the middle decades of the 20th century.
Away from the rock and pop world of festivals and arena tours, orchestral musicians and composers have relished the possibilities afforded by electronic music, particularly the potential to add extra texture and ambience, at times appropriating what previous generations termed 'noise'. Perhaps most familiar to recent Covent Garden audiences is the work of Max Richter, whose score for the ballet Infra blends mournful Arvo Pärt-influenced minimalist strings with haunting electronic soundscapes and samples. More recently Richter 'recomposed' Vivaldi's Four Seasons, discarding 75% of the original material and replacing it with looped samples of Vivaldi's string phrases and eerie electronic swells.
It's a sound that has gained traction in recent years with Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm and Dustin O'Halloran composing works that fall broadly under the banner of 'contemporary classical' and incorporate electronics. All three have, like Richter, collaborated with The Royal Ballet's Resident Choreographer, Wayne McGregor.
It's not just a case of composers with an orchestral background being seduced by electronic music, however. The pattern of influence flows the other way too, with electronic artists such as Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares having their heads turned by 20th century classical music: the former collaborating with Philip Glass, and the latter melding Stravinsky, Mahler and Bartók samples with high-tempo breakcore for the album Rossz Csillag Alatt Született.
Ethereal electronica artist Björk studied classical music during her formative years and has stated her love of Mahler, Berg and Prokofiev. Their influence has shown itself throughout her recorded output, most notably in her 2001 album Vespertine, which featured chamber orchestras and choirs alongside glitchy electronic beats.
Opera too, has not been immune to classical music's embrace of all things electronic – a striking recent example being Swedish synthpop duo The Knife's collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock on Tomorrow, In a Year, an electronic opera based on Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species staged at the Barbican in 2010. It's an ambient-heavy work, which sees classical mezzo-soprano vocals soaring over droning synths and vocoder phrases.
Luca Francesconi, whose opera Quartett receives its UK premiere next month at the Royal Opera House, studied under Stockhausen and has incorporated electronics into many of his works. Quartett sees him incorporate electronic ambient sounds under frenzied and often dissonant orchestral phrases to create a sense of claustrophobia- perfect for a narrative of the two last people alive on earth, trapped in a concrete bunker after World War III. It's sure to prove an intoxicating cocktail for the ears, and provide yet more proof that almost a century after Varèse urged the advance of music as an art form through the use of machines, composers continue to heed the call.
Quartett runs from 18-28 June 2014. Tickets are still available.]]>
Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte's collaboration on Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte was a yardstick for Richard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Da Ponte was one of 18th-century opera's most colourful characters: a former priest with a reputation as a womanizer, he emigrated to the US to start a new life as a greengrocer.
Writing to Strauss about Elektra in 1908, Hofmannsthal commented that 'you may wish me to transpose the whole thing into a simpler and more lyrical key, while preserving the scenario entire, an operation such as Da Ponte carried out on the text of the comedy Le Mariage de Figaro'. Strauss later praised Hofmannsthal as being like Da Ponte and Eugène Scribe, the librettist of Robert le diable and Les Vêpres siciliennes, 'rolled into one'. But perhaps the strongest parallel with the world of the late 18th-century Vienna and Mozart's collaboration with Da Ponte and came from Hofmannsthal in 1911, when he suggested that Die Frau ohne Schatten would 'stand in the same relation to Die Zauberflöte as Rosenkavalier does to Figaro'.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Ovid (43BC–AD17/18) was a Roman poet. Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's opera Ariadne aux Naxos, first performed in 1912 and revised in 1916, draws on Ovid's Heroides, among other sources.
Strauss returned to Ovid after Hofmannsthal's death for his 1938 opera Daphne, written with the librettist Josef Gregor. Based on an episode from Metamorphoses – as well drawing on The Bacchae by Euripides – it tells the story of Apollo's lust for Daphne. Gregor reimagined Ovid's nymph as a simple girl in love with nature. In his remorse over killing Leukippos, Daphne's childhood friend, Apollo asks Zeus to change Daphne into the kind of tree she dearly loves. This theme of transformation fascinated Strauss and it occurs in several of his works, not least the searing wartime threnody Metamorphosen, first performed in Zürich in 1946. Here, appalled by what had unfolded during the Nazis' '12-year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture', Strauss significantly reverses the classical idea that man can ultimately become divine.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
It is impossible to separate Richard Strauss from his Nazi associations.
While the music of many of his high-modernist and Jewish peers such as Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky was banned throughout the Reich (from 1933 in Germany and from 1938 in Austria) Strauss was appointed president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the state-run Nazi music bureau which promoted 'good German music' and suppressed 'degenerate' music including jazz, pop and atonal works.
Strauss used his position to improve the copyright situation for him and fellow German composers, yet he also had to kowtow to the party. Unfortunately, Strauss was often unable to differentiate between his and the common good and made palpable errors in judgment during the Nazi period, though it is essential to note that he was never a wholehearted adherent of the regime nor was he an anti-Semite. He often flouted party rule, including its insistence on everyone calling Hitler 'der Führer', but then promptly composed the Olympische Hymne for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. By doing so, Strauss hoped to curry favour with the authorities in a fight to keep Alice, his Jewish daughter-in-law, and his grandchildren safe, though he was sadly unable to save many of Alice's family.
At the end of War, when Strauss began to grasp the full horror of what had unfolded under the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, he wrote down his thoughts: 'From 1 May [1945] onwards, the most terrible period of human history came to an end, the 12-year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2,000 years of cultural evolution met its doom.'
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Soprano Ailyn Pérez and tenor Stephen Costello will be signing copies of their new CD, Love Duets, at the ROH Shop from 4pm this Saturday.
The singers are at Covent Garden to perform the roles of Violetta and Alfredo in The Royal Opera's La traviata. Their debut album includes romantic duets by Verdi, Puccini and Donizetti, among others.
Ailyn and Stephen will also be taking part in a Twitter Q&A on 8 May.
La traviata runs from 19 April-20 May 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by Rolex with generous philanthropic support from Quentin Holland.
Munich is the capital of Bavaria and was Richard Strauss's birthplace.
Smaller than either Berlin or Vienna, Munich nonetheless enjoyed a cultural renaissance during the latter part of the 19th and the early years of the 20th century.
Before the construction of the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth, Wagner had used Munich as the staging post for his operas. The city was also home to artists including Franz von Lenbach and Franz Stuck, Bavaria's answer to Gustav Klimt. Writers too were drawn to the city, with Thomas Mann (the writer of the novella Death in Venice, which inspired Britten's opera of the same name) moving to the city in 1891.
Strauss was born on 11 June 1864 in a second-floor apartment on Altheimer Eck, a street right in the heart of the city, adjacent to Strauss's paternal grandfather's brewery. Sadly the building, like much of Munich and Dresden, was destroyed in World War II. Pschorr's beer lives on however, meaning that 150 years on from the composer's birth, you can still sample Strauss's ancestral tipple.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
In May and June 2014 Simon Rattle returns to the Royal Opera House to conduct Poulenc's exquisite Dialogues des Carmélites.
Through his collaborations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Rattle has become one of the most celebrated orchestral conductors working today. In celebration of his return to the Royal Opera House after a seven-year absence, we've collected together some of our favourite YouTube videos of Rattle that display his versatility and passion.
Rattle brilliantly conducts key pieces from the concert repertory. Here he conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in an extract from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:
But he has also made it his mission to promote less familiar music, and has championed the works of Sibelius. Here he conducts Sibelius's Seventh Symphony in full, with the Royal Danish Orchestra:
During his long partnership with CBSO Rattle made many iconic recordings, and also supervised the orchestra's move to the stunning Symphony Hall. Here is his 1998 farewell performance with the orchestra in full, in Mahler's Second Symphony with soloists Hillevi Martinpelto and Anne Sofie von Otter:
Rattle regularly conducts Stravinsky's thrilling The Rite of Spring in concert – but here he and the Berlin Philharmonic join in a unique collaboration with dance schools from around Europe, with choreography by Royston Maldoom:
The conductor clearly relishes these innovative projects. With Peter Sellars has created unique stagings of Bach's St Matthew Passion (2010) and St John Passion (2014), and in summer 2014 he brings the St Matthew Passion to the BBC Proms with an all-star cast. Here he and the Berlin Philharmonic perform an excerpt from the original production:
Rattle is famous for his interpretations of French 20th-century repertory, and here introduces Ravel's dream-like opera L'Enfant et les sortilèges, in a recording with the Berlin Philharmonic:
Rattle has been a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment since the early 1990s. He conducts them in Classical and Baroque repertory but also in later music, bringing their period expertise into a new soundworld – as here, in a concert performance of Das Rheingold, the first opera in Wagner's epic Ring cycle, in Baden-Baden:
Rattle is a founding member of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and supports the playing of contemporary music. Here he extends that interest back to Ligeti, in a performance of the composer's brilliant Mysteries of the Macabre with Barbara Hannigan:
The conductor has long been interested in music from the USA and has produced several great recordings of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Here he conducts on the soundtrack from a film based on Trevor Nunn's 1986 Glyndebourne production, starring Willard W. White and Cynthia Haymon:
We should never forget Rattle began his career as a percussionist. Here he plays the timpani and conducts in the opening of Siegfried Matthus's Konzert für fünf:
And finally, here he is with the London Symphony Orchestra and very a special guest artist at the Opening Ceremony of London 2012.
What have been your favourite Simon Rattle performances and recordings?
Dialogues des Carmélites runs from 29 May-11 June 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet, The Taylor Family Foundation and The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The original production is from De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam.]]>
Following in the grand tradition of Lieder, Richard Strauss wrote over 200 songs during the course of his career.
His first, 'Weihnachtslied', was written in 1870 when he was just six years old. His last, 'Malven', was written for the soprano Maria Jeritza in 1948, the year before he died.
Some of his songs clearly maintain the strophic structure of the original text, while others often show Strauss's dramatic bent, developing like operatic scenes in miniature. When Salome became a huge success in 1905 (despite the Kaiser's predictions), Strauss's focus on Lieder diminished, though he returned to song during his final years, not least with the intensely moving Four Last Songs, comprising three poems by Hermann Hesse, whose work had been banned by the Nazis, and one text by Joseph von Eichendorff.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941) ruled the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 1888 to 1918.
After the 1905 premiere of Salome in Dresden, the Kaiser - otherwise a fan of the composer's work - told Richard Strauss that 'This Salome will do you no good'. In response, Strauss quipped that 'The "no good" enabled me to build my house in Garmisch'. Such was the sensation that the piece caused with the public and the press alike, that within two years it had been staged at 50 other opera houses around Europe.
The Catholic Church had condemned the piece and the Kaiser remained unconvinced, nearly banning the opera when plans were made for a Berlin premiere. The head of the Hofoper in Berlin appealed to the authorities, suggesting that they could put the star of Bethlehem in the painted sky over the stage, giving the sense that redemption would soon be at hand. Sadly, the management had confused the various Herods in the Bible - It is Herod Antipas who appears in Salome, while it is Herod the Great whom the wise men visit and who later slaughters the innocents. Nonetheless, with this historical inaccuracy intact, the opera was finally staged in Berlin, shocking and thrilling yet another audience on its way to becoming one of the iconic 20th-century operas.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Max Emanuel Cencic - Rokoko (Decca)
The spectacular rise of the countertenor over the last decade has seen several float to the top of the superstar recording stakes. Pre-eminent among them is ex-Vienna Boys Choir member Max Emanuel Cencic who, after a slew of releases on various labels, has now signed exclusively to Decca. His first release for them is Rokoko, an album of dramatic arias by the often overlooked composer Adolf Hasse. Cencic is a bold singer who takes risks but has the technique to pull them off. Hasse's arias span the full dramatic range, from plaintive lament to heroic coloratura, and Cencic is in spectacular voice and command throughout. It's muscular, virile singing, and the disc is hugely recommendable.
Iestyn Davies - Your Tuneful Voice: Handel Oratorio Arias (Vivat)
British countertenor Iestyn Davies also enjoys an extensive and acclaimed recording history. His latest release, Your Tuneful Voice, has him take on a range of arias from oratorios by Handel. Exquisitely accompanied by The King's Consort and with contributions from soprano Carolyn Sampson, this finds Davies at his most congenial. Far less the obvious showman than Cencic, Davies sings with a quiet and direct sincerity that communicates superbly both text and music. Virtuosity is there when required, always at the service of the musical line and weighted with dramatic intention. A very beautiful recital, well worth adding to your collection.
Krassimira Stoyanova - Verdi (Orfeo)
Soprano Krassimira Stoyanova has come late to the Verdi celebrations. Better late than never in this instance as I'd rate this as the best soprano Verdi recital to appear for some time. The repertory choices may seem a little safe, but they represent where Stoyanova's voice and temperament are most suited. She offers surprising bite in Aida's daunting 'Ritorna Vincitor' (she takes the role on for the first time in Munich next season), but is able to use her luminous voice to magnificent effect in arias from Il Trovatore, Don Carlo and Otello (among others). She has the style, a voice of immense beauty and flexibility, and a peerless technique. Simply titled Verdi, this is a disc of quality and integrity.
What recently released recordings would you recommend?]]>
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was an English playwright and poet.
Jonson's 1609 play Epicœne, or The Silent Woman is the basis for Richard Strauss's comic opera Die schweigsame Frau, which had its premiere in Dresden in 1935. The opera was Strauss's sole collaboration with the writer Stefan Zweig (currently experiencing a surge of interest thanks to his influence on Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel), who succeeded the late Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Sadly, being Jewish, Zweig fell foul of the Nazis and his and Strauss's opera was banned after only four performances.
Like Jonson's play, Die schweigsame Frau is a light and witty work, featuring Sir Morosus, who seeks a quiet life with a silent wife. He dismisses his chatty housekeeper and is presented with three potential brides. Little does he know that they are all members of his nephew's wife's opera troupe in disguise, recalling Strauss's earlier opera Ariadne auf Naxos. The opera is hugely entertaining and, had it not disappeared from view, Die schweigsame Frau may well have become one of Strauss's most popular works.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (which ran until 2 April 2014) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos are still available.]]>
Kasper Holten's Royal Opera production of Cavalli's comic opera L'Ormindo is to be broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 14 April at 7.15pm.
The production, which opened on 25 March, stars Samuel Boden, Ed Lyon, Joélle Harvey and Susanna Hurrell. It has been described by critics as musically 'lavish and bursting with variety, while the plot proves shameless and saucy'.
Read audience reactions to the opening night.
A lively mixture of comedy and romance, the story of L'Ormindo follows the trials and tribulations of two pairs of lovers in the ancient kingdom of Mauretania. Find out more about a special duet between Prince Amidas and Princess Sicle in our Musical Highlights article.
Conducted by Baroque specialist Christian Curnyn, L'Ormindo is performed by the Early Opera Company, one of Britain's leading early music ensembles, who meticulously research which instruments to use and how to play them to re-create the sound of Baroque music. Find out more about baroque instrumentation.
The production, currently onstage at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, marks the first major collaboration between the Royal Opera House and the Shakespeare's Globe.
Other forthcoming Radio 3 broadcasts include Faust, which will be broadcast live on 22 April. See full details of spring and summer broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.
L'Ormindo runs until 12 April 2014 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe.
The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Sir Simon and Lady Robertson.
Intermezzo is the title of Richard Strauss's eighth opera.
With a title that referred to the often farcical performances staged during the intermissions of serious 18th-century operas, Intermezzo emerged after Die Frau ohne Schatten and Strauss wrote both the music and the libretto. Strauss had told Hofmannsthal, somewhat exasperatedly, that their highly symbolic Die Frau ohne Schatten should be their 'last Romantic opera'. Strauss accordingly created a contemporary, domestic work, revolving around a crisis prompted by misunderstood telegram. The opera features Robert Storch, a conductor and composer, and his wife Christine (a role created by Lotte Lehmann). The premiere took place in Dresden in 1924, with sets mimicking the Strauss home in Garmisch. Intermezzo continues to explore the marital themes of Die Frau ohne Schatten, albeit told in a pithier manner, more apt for the 1920s, dominated by the spirit of Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity).
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with an upcoming production of Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets are still available.]]>
Just in case anyone was in any doubt, that was one of the greatest performances I've ever had the privilege of attending #rohwinterreise
— Katherine Cooper (@ZwischenKath) April 6, 2014
A rather cerebral performance tonight when I was expecting something more intuitive, coloured, genuine! Slightly frustrated #ROHwinterreise
— melanie trombetta (@mjetrombetta) April 6, 2014
Beautiful performance from Kaufmann in #ROHWinterreise. Went through the whole range of emotions in the piece superbly. Amazing singer!
— James Flattery (@jflatter) April 6, 2014
@TheRoyalOpera #JonasKaufmann singing Schubert #ROHwinterreise glorious breathtakingly beautiful achingly sad.
— Catherine Gull (@catgull) April 6, 2014
All praise to @RoyalOperaHouse for the stage setting and organising the signing. It makes all the difference #ROHwinterreise
— Wisdom Hill (@Scarlet2046) April 6, 2014
searingly inward spiritual journey heroic yet restrained.held audience rapt until final long held silence @TenorKaufmann #ROHwinterreise
— John Johnston (@JohnVecchio) April 6, 2014
Praise be to the unsung hero of the night, Helmut Deutsch, whose glacial pace during the last quarter chilled every bone #ROHwinterreise
— Andres Rial (@AJRG620) April 6, 2014
Jonas Kaufmann's artistry never ceases to amaze me. Tonight was heart-&-head-wrenching. #rohwinterreise
— Shyam Bhatt (@_ShyamBhatt) April 6, 2014
I'm totally depressed. How am I going to face the new week? Need something cheerful to recover. #ROHwinterreise
— Yosh M (@yoshkosh10) April 6, 2014
Still mesmerised by last night's @TenorKaufmann & Helmut Deutsch performing #ROHWinterreise @RoyalOperaHouse Wonderful, wonderful!
— Ben Fleetwood Smyth (@bfleetwoodsmyth) April 7, 2014
If only JK could sing #rohwinterreise in my living room every night
— Sebastian (@Sebastian_G_A) April 6, 2014
Jonas Kaufmann sublime in #ROHwinterreise tonight; five curtain calls and a standing ovation. More recitals @RoyalOperaHouse please.
— Lisa Katsiaris (@louloufrascatti) April 6, 2014
What did you think of Jonas Kaufmann's Winterreise recital?
Jonas Kaufmann returns to the Royal Opera House this Season in Manon Lescaut. The production runs from 17 June - 7 July 2014. General booking opens on 8 April.
He will also perform in David McVicar's new production of Andrea Chénier during the 2014/15 Season. General booking opens on 21 October 2014.
Holy smokes! @sonyayoncheva was awesome in #ROHfaust this evening! Blew me away...certainly want to hear more. Brilliant casting decision.
— Andrew Savill (@Andrew_Savill) April 4, 2014
The Devil might not quite have all the best tunes here, but as always @Bryn_Terfel has all the fun #ROHfaust
— Karen Richardson (@Hertsandminds) April 4, 2014
Still buzzing after opening night with @Bryn_Terfel @MalteseTenor Sonya Yoncheva, Simon Keenlyside & Team #ROHFaust!! #DreamCast #DreamJob
— Greg Eldridge (@Geldridg_) April 5, 2014
Terfel's voice might have hardened a little over the years but he still tears up the stage & is absolutely mesmerizing #ROHFaust
— Operatraveller (@Operatraveller) April 4, 2014
Surely Yoncheva is the new Callas - a vocal and dramatic phenomenon in #ROHFaust - first time I have REALLY enjoyed this production.
— Attila (@attilalondon) April 4, 2014
Enjoyed the performance and production of #ROHFaust but I am not sure of the quality of the piece itself.
— James Flattery (@jflatter) April 4, 2014
Netrebko withdrew from Faust, but young Bulgarian soprano @SonyaYoncheva rocks the house tonight @RoyalOperaHouse Bravo! #ROHFaust
— Hristina Ninova (@spinniorkata) April 4, 2014
Really enjoyed #ROHfaust, what fantastic singing. And didn't expect to see @EricUnderwood1!
— Juliet Ashdown (@JulietAshdown) April 4, 2014
As an opera, though, #ROHfaust doesn't grab me. Tonight perhaps got me as close as I'll ever get to being excited about grand opera.
— keval shah (@kevalshah9) April 4, 2014
What did you think of Faust?
Faust runs until 25 April - tickets are still available.
Faust is a co-production with Opéra de Monte Carlo, Opéra de Lille and Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, Trieste
Production staged with generous philanthropic support from David Hancock, Spindrift Al Swaidi, Martin and Jane Houston, Mr and Mrs Christopher W.T. Johnston, The Tsukanov Family Foundation, The Connoisseurs' Series and The Friends of Covent Garden
Lied (plural Lieder) simply means 'song'. But the word connotes a genre of music in which the operatic is made miniature, told through the intimate forces of voice and piano. Its combination of epic and domestic, high art and universal emotions, is for many a perfect distillation of 19th-century thought and the philosophy of the Romantics.
As such, the Lied's genesis has inspired a degree of myth-making. The genre has even had bestowed upon it a specific birth date – 19 October 1814, the day Franz Schubert composed Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the spinning wheel). This notion of a 'Eureka' moment obscures much: the handful of songs commonly considered Lieder by 18th-century composers, such as Haydn and Mozart; textual evidence that suggests the primacy of song in German thought from at least the 1740s; and, perhaps most grievously, the significance of Beethoven's exquisite song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved). And yet that date has its allure, in the emphasis it places on two key figures – Schubert and Goethe.
The Lied begins with Goethe, and the lyric renaissance in German poetry that occurred over the second half of the 18th century. Goethe and others of his era looked to folksong. They incorporated folkish, natural elements such as short lines and strophic structures in poetry that also drew on sophisticated Classical devices and post-Enlightenment thought. The product was a body of poetry at once simple and complex, accessible and rarefied, familiar and yet novel. It found a ready audience in an educated middle class nostalgic for the past.
In 1809 Goethe expressed his belief that lyric poetry could only be completed through music setting: 'Only then is the poetic inspiration… sublimated (or rather fused) into the free and beautiful element of sensory experience… [and] we think and feel at the same time'. Schubert was the first to realize this belief. He went far beyond the sensitive word-setting and atmospheric accompaniment of earlier song composers. In his mature work – from Gretchen on – he fused music and text to create Lieder that transformed the poetry he used into a new art form, and encapsulated in each Lied a unique world.
Schubert took advantage of recent technical developments in the piano to create an astonishing variety of textures, compressing an orchestra down into just one instrument. He used this rich language to powerful expressive effect, often with imaginative motifs that immediately suggested images of the text – such as the continual spinning motion of Gretchen am Spinnrade, or the thundering hooves in Erlkönig (Erlking). He made these motifs crucial structural elements, infusing the Lied with his passionate response to the poem. Largely syllabic settings allowed the poetry to be strongly declaimed, and emphasized the synthesis of words and music – while often through-composed music added a further dimension to principally strophic poetry. From songs of less than a minute through to his great song cycles – Die schöne Müllerin (The beautiful miller-maid), Winterreise (Winter journey) and Schwanengesang (Swansong) – he created works of great beauty and dramatic power.
Schubert's Lieder found popularity with the same middle class, who now brought pianos into their homes. In Schubertiade evenings, his Lieder were celebrated, either in large gatherings or by one individual alone with the piano. Schubert's well over six hundred Lieder (an astonishing number given his short life) engendered the genre in which the popular and the individual were both represented, and in which the drama and effects of opera were distilled into something that could be powerfully conveyed wherever the setting.
Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch perform Schubert's Winterreise on the Royal Opera House main stage on 6 April 2014. Tickets are sold out, but returns may become available and there will be 67 day tickets on the day of the performance.]]>
Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929) was a Vienna-born writer who became Richard Strauss's most persistent collaborator.
Their partnership spanned from Elektra (1909) to Arabella (1933). Hofmannsthal first approached Strauss in 1900 with a scenario for a ballet called Der Triumph der Zeit, but it was Strauss who instigated their working relationship proper when he asked Hofmannsthal if he could adapt the writer's 1903 version of Sophocles's tragedy Electra for the operatic stage.
Before he met Strauss, Hofmannsthal was a major figure within Jung Wien, the group of intellectual radicals who dominated the culture of turn of the century Vienna. On the face of it, a partnership seemed unlikely - Hofmannsthal was scholarly and cerebral, while Strauss was theatrical and practically minded. It proved a winning combination and together the pair wrote Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Die ägyptische Helena and Arabella, as well as Hofmannsthal providing the scenario for the 1914 ballet Josephslegende and the opera Die Liebe der Danae.
As you might expect from two contrasting personalities, their relationship was frequently marked by disagreement, as detailed in their extensive correspondence. The partnership had a particularly tragic end, when Hofmannsthal died of a stroke in July 1929, two days after his son Franz had committed suicide. A telegram had arrived from Strauss in the 48-hour period between the two deaths, congratulating Hofmannsthal on his superb work on Arabella. But he neither read the missive nor saw the result of that hard work and Strauss, learning of his friend's death, was plunged into a deep depression, which prevented him from attending the funeral. 'No musician ever found such a helper and supporter', Strauss wrote. 'No one will ever replace him for me or the world of music!'.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (until 2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.]]>
Audiences have the chance to hear world-class musicians in a more intimate setting with our programme of free lunchtime recitals, which take place most Mondays in the Crush Room, Linbury Studio Theatre or the Paul Hamlyn Hall.
The performances form an important part of the Jette Parker Young Artists programme. A very different experience to performing on the expansive main stage, they help the Young Artists to perfect the intimate craft of giving recitals.
'Singing a recital is so different from being on the main stage, when you have professional lighting, make-up and costume,' says Anush Hovhannisyan. 'A recital is a wonderful chance to meet the audience in a more informal situation, be yourself and give a more sincere performance, singing music that identifies you as a person and a singer.' Anush will make her recital debut on 14 April with a programme that includes works by Berg and Brahms, as well as songs from her native Armenia: 'In a way, I feel like I'm both the stage and musical director of my own show – I think it will be an unforgettable date for me.'
Fellow JPYA Michel de Souza spoke in a recent interview about the particular demands of a recital; that without the performance element of opera, an artist is more exposed.
Jette Parker Young Artists Helen Nicholas and Jean-Paul Pruna performing in a lunchtime recital in the Paul Hamlyn Hall © ROH 2013
Jette Parker Young Artist Luis Gomes performing in recital, accompanied by David Gowland © ROH / Lottie Butler 2014
Jette Parker Young Artist Luis Gomes performing in recital, accompanied by David Gowland © ROH / Lottie Butler 2014
The next JPYA recital will be on 7 April and will see mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly perform a programme that includes works by Purcell, Debussy and Strauss in the Crush Room. Rachel is currently performing in Kasper Holten's production of Cavalli's L'Ormindo at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre, and was previously due to perform in March. However, a rehearsal clash meant that former Young Artists Susana Gaspar (2011-2013) and ZhengZhong Zhou (2010-2012) had to step in with just one week's notice.
'It was a great pleasure to sing again at the Royal Opera House with a great soprano, my good friend Susana,' says ZhengZhong. 'It reminded me a lot of the many memories I have of the JPYA Programme. I really miss the London audiences and the opera house!'
'Although it was a last minute recital, I enjoyed every moment of it,' adds Susana. 'To sing in the Crush Room again, for a lovely audience and with two very special friends and colleagues was more than I could ask for!'
During recitals, singers are accompanied by members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, The Royal Opera Chorus or Southbank Sinfonia. The events are free to attend and tickets can be reserved online up to nine days before the concert. However, although advance tickets are often sold out, tickets are available in person from the Box Office on the day. View the full lunchtime recital listings.
Find out more about the life of a Jette Parker Young Artist:
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is supported by Oak Foundation. Find out more about the programme in our News and Features section.]]>
Autumn Season
Anna Nicole
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Dir: Richard Jones
Cond: Antonio Pappano
A tale of sex, celebrity and scandal: Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera explores the dramatic life and death of Anna Nicole Smith.
11 (Student Performance) | 16 | 18 | 20 | 24 September at 7.30pm; 13 September at 7pm
Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: David McVicar
Cond: Maurizio Benini (except 6 Oct) / Paul Griffiths (6 Oct)
Corruption and innocence collide in Verdi's remarkable opera. David McVicar's staging emphasizes the depravity at the heart of the court of Mantua.
12 | 15 | 17† | 23 | 30 September at 7.30pm; 20 September at 12.30pm; 21 September at 2pm; 27 September at 7pm
3** | 6 October at 7.30pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
† BP Big Screen Live Relay
**Sign-language interpreted
Il barbiere di Siviglia
Gioachino Rossini
Dir: Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier
Cond: Mark Elder
Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's production of Rossini's sparkling comedy is full of wit and energy.
19 | 22 | 25 | 29 September at 7pm
2 October at 7pm; 5 October at 6.30pm
The Trial NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Philip Glass
Lib: Christopher Hampton
Dir: Michael McCarthy
Cond: Michael Rafferty
Philip Glass, one of the world's most popular contemporary composers, creates a new work for Music Theatre Wales based on Kafka's nightmarish novel.
10 | 11 | 14 | 15 | 17 October at 7.45pm; 18 October at 6pm
La scala di seta (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Gioachino Rossini
Dir: Greg Eldridge §
Cond: Jonathan Santagada §
The Jette Parker Young Artists present a fully staged performance in the Linbury Studio Theatre, in one of the most popular highlights of Meet the Young Artists Week.
23 October at 7pm; 24 October at 1pm and 7pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
I due Foscari NEW
Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Thaddeus Strassberger
Cond: Antonio Pappano (14, 17, 20, 23, 27 Oct) / Renato Balsadonna (30 Oct, 2 Nov)
A despairing father is torn between love for his family and duty to a corrupt city in Verdi's searing early tragedy.
14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 27† | 30 October at 7.30pm
2 November at 3pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
† Live cinema relay
Idomeneo NEW
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dir: Martin Kušej
Cond: Marc Minkowski
Love and sacrifice vie in Mozart's sublime early masterpiece, directed by Martin Kušej in his UK debut.
3 | 6 | 10 | 15 | 19 | 24 November at 6.30pm
Glare NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Søren Nils Eichberg
Lib: Hannah Dübgen
Dir: Thaddeus Strassberger
Cond: Geoffrey Paterson
Danish-German composer Søren Nils Eichberg presents his taut thriller about trust and reality.
Cast: TBC
TBC November
L'elisir d'amore
Gaetano Donizetti
Dir: Laurent Pelly
Cond: Daniele Rustioni
Laurent Pelly's acclaimed production of Donizetti's opera radiates tenderness, humour and southern sunshine.
18 | 26† November at 7.30pm; 22 November at 3pm (Welcome Performance); 29 November at 7pm
4 | 9 December at 7.30pm; 13 December at 7pm
† Live cinema relay
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Orfeo NEW (Roundhouse, Camden)
Claudio Monteverdi
Dir: Michael Boyd / Trans: Don Paterson
Cond: Christian Curnyn
Michael Boyd directs a new production of Monteverdi's masterpiece, the first great opera, at the Roundhouse.
13 | 14 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 21 | 23 | 24 January
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Winter Season
Tristan und Isolde
Richard Wagner
Dir: Christof Loy
Cond: Antonio Pappano
Christof Loy brings intense insight to Wagner's story of illicit love, told through music of thrilling power.
5 | 8 | 11 | 17 December at 5pm; 14 | 21 December at 3pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Un ballo in maschera NEW
Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Katharina Thoma
Cond: Daniel Oren
Katharina Thoma directs a new production of Verdi's tragedy of illicit love, loyalty and betrayal.
18 | 22 | 30 December at 7.30pm
2 | 6 | 13 January at 7.30pm; 17 January at 7pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Listen to the Silence – A Journey with John Cage NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
John Cage
Dir: Wouter Van Looy / Letizia Renzini
Explore the mind-bending world of philosopher composer John Cage in Zonzo Compagnie's award-winning interactive family show.
30 January at 7pm; 31 January at 2pm and 4pm
1 February at 2pm and 4pm
Andrea Chénier NEW
Umberto Giordano
Dir: David McVicar
Cond: Antonio Pappano
David McVicar directs a new production of Umberto Giordano's passionate drama of liberty and love in the French Revolution.
20 | 23 | 26 | 29† | 31 January at 7.30pm
3 | 6 February at 7.30pm
† Live cinema relay
Der fliegende Holländer
Richard Wagner
Dir: Tim Albery
Cond: Andris Nelsons
Tim Albery's acclaimed production is a darkly insightful account of Wagner's early masterpiece, The Flying Dutchman.
5 | 9 | 12 | 17 | 20 | 24† February at 7.30pm
† Live cinema relay
Die Zauberflöte
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dir: David McVicar
Cond: Cornelius Meister
Comedy and philosophy unite in Mozart's glorious The Magic Flute, brought enchantingly to life by David McVicar.
23 | 26 | 28 February at 7pm
2 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 March at 7pm
Spring Season
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny NEW
Kurt Weill
Dir: John Fulljames
Cond: Mark Wigglesworth
John Fulljames presents a new production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's furiously impassioned satire on consumerism.
10 | 12 | 14 | 24 March at 7.30pm; 28 March at 12.30pm
1† | 4 April at 7.30pm
† Live cinema relay
Madama Butterfly
Giacomo Puccini
Dir: Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier
Cond: Nicola Luisotti
East meets West with devastating effect in Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's production of Puccini's poignant opera.
20 | 23 | 28 | 31 March at 7.30pm
4 April at 2.30pm; 6 April at 7.30pm; 9 | 11 April at 12.30pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Swanhunter (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Jonathan Dove
Alasdair Middleton
Dir: Hannah Mulder / Rachael Canning
Cond: Catriona Beveridge
In a new co-production, Opera North and The Wrong Crowd present Jonathan Dove's family opera, with a beguiling blend of evocative music, stunning puppetry and visual storytelling.
4–11 April
Il turco in Italia
Gioachino Rossini
Dir: Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier
Cond: Evelino Pidò
Rossini's irresistible comedy glows with Fellini-esque glamour in Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's sun-drenched production.
11 | 15 | 20 | 27 April at 7.30pm; 18 | 25 April at 7pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Król Roger NEW
Karol Szymanowski
Dir: Kasper Holten
Cond: Antonio Pappano
Kasper Holten presents a new production of Szymanowski's sumptuously scored meditation on identity and desire.
1 | 6 | 12 | 19 May at 7.30pm; 9 | 16 May at 7pm
Antonio Pappano Orchestral Concert
Cond: Antonio Pappano
Soprano: Anna Caterina Antonacci
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano conducts a captivating programme that celebrates the award-winning Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
4 May at 7.30pm
The Virtues of Things NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Matt Rogers
Lib: Sally O'Reilly
Rising stars Matt Rogers and Sally O'Reilly present a new opera as part of the annual collaboration between The Royal Opera, Opera North and Aldeburgh Music.
TBC May
La traviata
Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Richard Eyre
Cond: Marc Minkowski (18 | 22 | 25 | 28 May; 3 | 19 | 24 | 27 | 30 June; 4 July) / Alexander Joel (6 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 June)
Verdi's tragic tale of a Parisian courtesan who sacrifices all for love is vividly told in Richard Eyre's production.
18 | 22 | 25 | 28 May at 7pm
3 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 24 | 27 | 30 June at 7pm
4 July at 7pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Summer Season
La bohème
Giacomo Puccini
Dir: John Copley
Cond: Dan Ettinger (23, 27, 30 May; 2, 5, 8, 10 June) / Alexander Joel (9 mat, 11, 13, 16 July)
A lost key and an accidental touch of cold hands in the dark – so begins one of the greatest romances of all opera.
23 | 27 | 30 May at 7.30pm
2 | 5 | 8 | 10† June at 7.30pm
9 July at 12.30pm; 11 | 13 | 16 July at 7.30pm
† Live cinema relay
King Size NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Christoph Marthaler
A somnolent couple in a huge hotel bedroom sing songs ranging from Purcell to pop, in Christoph Marthaler's acclaimed reimagining of the Liederabend ('evening of song').
TBC June
The Cure / The Corridor NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
Harrison Birtwistle
Lib: David Harsent
Dir: Martin Duncan
Cond: TBC
A double programme of chamber operas celebrates the work of Harrison Birtwistle, marking his 80th birthday.
TBC June
Dot, Squiggle and Rest NEW (Clore Studio Upstairs)
Elspeth Brooke and Joy Haynes
The award-winning Polka Theatre presents an enchanting children's opera in collaboration with The Royal Opera's former Composer in Residence, Elspeth Brooke.
TBC June
Don Giovanni
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dir: Kasper Holten
Cond: Alain Altinoglu
ROH Director of Opera Kasper Holten directs a mesmerizing reading of Mozart's tragicomedy.
12 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 25 June at 7pm
1 | 3 July at 7pm
Guillaume Tell NEW
Gioachino Rossini
Dir: Damiano Michieletto
Cond: Antonio Pappano
Damiano Michieletto makes his UK debut with a new production of Rossini's final opera and greatest masterpiece.
29 June at 6pm
2 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 17 July at 6pm; 5† July at 3pm
† Live cinema relay
Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Robert Carsen
Cond: Michael Schønwandt
Robert Carsen's production of Verdi's comic masterpiece is filled with wit, humour and joie de vivre.
6 | 9 | 15 | 18 July at 7.30pm; 12 July at 7pm
Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Performance
Staging: Greg Eldridge §
18 July at 1pm
§ Jette Parker Young Artist
Plácido Domingo's Operalia
Competition Final
The final of Plácido Domingo's international singing competition comes to the Royal Opera House for the first time, in an extravaganza of operatic song.
19 July at 6pm
Peter Pan NEW
Richard Ayres
Lib: Lavinia Greenlaw
Dir: Keith Warner
Cond: TBC
Welsh National Opera presents Richard Ayres and Lavinia Greenlaw's new family opera adapted from J.M. Barrie's beloved fairytale.
24 | 25 July at 7.30pm
mad boy clever girl (double bill) NEW (Linbury Studio Theatre)
David Sawer
Dir: Richard Jones
Cond: TBC
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group performs two chamber works by leading British composer David Sawer, brought together as the composer intended for the first time.
TBC July]]>
Garmisch is the town in the Bavarian Alps where Richard Strauss made his home.
The old Teutonic settlement is now part of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, together constituting a major stopover on the route south to Italy.
During the late 19th century, Garmisch became a retreat for wealthy Munich residents – a trend enhanced by the opening of the railway at the beginning of the 20th century. It was here, after the success of Salome, that Strauss decided to build a home. Kaiser Wilhelm II had disapproved of the opera after its premiere, saying 'This Salome will do you no good'. ' The "no good" enabled me to build my house in Garmisch,' Strauss later mused, albeit in the privacy of his own diary.
The Villa Strauss was built by the Bavarian Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) architect Emanuel von Seidl, and Strauss lived and worked there for the rest of his life. The Villa was nearly commandeered during the war, following a decision high up in Hitler's command that it should be used to house evacuees from Munich. Strauss fought the pronouncement and it was eventually overturned, albeit bringing an end to all 'personal dealings' between Strauss and the Nazis. Left alone, Strauss focussed once again on his music, until American troops arrived on 30 April 1945, demanding use of the house. Strauss, now an aged man, simply stood at the end of his drive and said, 'I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Der Rosenkavalier and Salome'. Luckily the particular soldier ordered to seize the Villa was fond of Strauss's music. So apart from keen autograph hunters, Strauss was left alone for the remainder of his days.
The town that Richard Strauss made his home is now home to the Richard Strauss Festival each summer, which attracts opera fans from around the world.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (until 2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.]]>
Richard Strauss's father Franz Strauss (1822–1905) was a highly esteemed horn player and composer.
He married twice: first to Elise Maria Seiff, who died, along with both of their children; and then to Strauss's mother, Josephine Pschorr, the daughter of a wealthy brewer in Munich. Franz held the position of principal horn in the Munich Court Orchestra for 40 years and he played in the premieres of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde in Munich as well as Parsifal at Bayreuth. Richard Wagner reportedly consulted Franz Strauss about the famous 'Siegfried' horn call in Der Ring des Nibelungen. Yet despite these experiences and Franz's steadfast professionalism, he loathed Wagner, calling him 'the Mephistopheles of music'. His dislike was duly reciprocated when Wagner said that 'Strauss is a detestable fellow, but when he plays the horn you can't be angry with him'.
Guided by his traditional musical tastes, Franz kept a keen eye on his precocious son Richard's musical education, instituting a strict diet of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. The young Richard eventually broke away from his father's edicts and pursued an operatic career. Strauss's father, having died in May 1905, did not live to see the first performances of Salome that December.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer will be celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (14 March-2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.]]>
Francesco Cavalli composed at a time of intense operatic development. Throughout the 17th century, opera – sung drama – became more and more popular, and composers suddenly found themselves writing for public paying audiences, rather than the private courts that had previously been opera's home. Composers were experimenting with new styles of music and new ways of telling stories.
It was not only the musical forms that were changing but also the instruments and the way they were played. Even small changes in instruments have huge effects on how they're played and the way they sound, both individually and in ensembles. This in turn influences the music written for them. The flurry of experimentation in Italy at Cavalli's time meant these changes happened rapidly and divergently between city states – even the pitches used in the leading centres, Rome and Venice, were significantly different.
An awareness of these differences and the effect they have on how audiences hear the music has been one of the major motivations behind 'historically informed' performance practice. The movement is driven by a desire to explore the astonishingly different sound world that existed before instruments reached their relatively stable modern forms.
An enormous amount of detective work goes into period performance. Researchers draw on a variety of material to try to understand how instruments were made, how they looked and how they were played. The music itself plays a big part, suggesting range and relative volume and also providing helpful insights into phrase length, ornamentation and so on. There are also clues to be gleaned from contemporary artwork, written accounts and treatises – and even the places where works were performed.
The Early Opera Company, who play in The Royal Opera's production of L'Ormindo, are one of several groups who place this research at the heart of their playing. They gather instrumentalists who are leading specialists not only in how their instrument should be played, but what sort of instrument it should be. They work with modern luthiers (instrument makers) who create new instruments modelled on centuries-old practices, incorporating into their research the firsthand experience of the players themselves.
Most of Cavalli's operas from his period in Venice used a small orchestra of strings with continuo (a small ensemble that improvised around a bassline) , and L'Ormindo, first performed 1644 in Venice, is no exception. The Early Opera Company is using two violins, two violas, and a continuo of a bass violin, theorbo/guitar and baroque harp.
The harp used is an arpa tripla ('triple harp'), a relatively recent invention in Cavalli's time that used three rows of strings or 'ranks'. Two parallel ranks sit either side of one with chromatic notes, which gives the harpist access to all the notes (imagine both black and white notes on a keyboard) while allowing her to play equally with both hands. The harp that's being played in L'Ormindo was built by Enzo Laurenti in 2011.
The theorbo was another recent invention in Cavalli's time. It was developed towards the end of the 15th century by Renaissance Humanists inspired by the Ancient Greek instrument the kithara, which was used to accompany poetry recitations. A large member of the lute family, the theorbo has two necks - one long and one shorter - that sit side by side. The relatively weak gut strings of the time resulted in the theorbo's unusual tuning pattern; the top two strings, thinner than the others, couldn't be stretched for the long neck of the theorbo and so are tuned down an octave, making the third string the highest – a curiosity often exploited by composers. The instrument, though very soft, became popular in opera for continuo and for accompanying arias; contemporary visitors to Venice wrote of seeing the long necks projecting above the ensemble swaying in time to the music. For L'Ormindo, a copy of a Venetian guitar made by Martin Haycock and a theorbo made by Klaus Jacobsen will be played.
The violin family instruments look superficially similar to their modern counterparts but sound very different. One of the most significant changes since Cavalli's time was the development of wire-wound strings (where a metal wire is wound round a gut string core). Wound strings are not only much stronger than plain gut but also much thinner. Thick strings vibrate in quite a complicated way, marring the upper harmonics of the sound and making it sound weak and out of tune. To combat this, low gut strings had to be very long – but this introduced fingering difficulties for the player. Wound strings meant a shorter string could be used.
This development had a tremendous and immediate effect on the bass violin, which was rapidly replaced by (or in some cases brutally trimmed down into) the instrument's smaller cousin, the violoncello. The stronger strings weren't introduced to the violin and viola until a little later, but they led to many changes: the neck was elongated and bent, putting more pressure on the bridge and so making the instrument louder; a longer bow was used with hair in higher tension; a chin rest was introduced and the instrument held more securely under the neck as opposed to lightly against the chest. Cavalli's violins would have sounded very different from their descendants, and would also have blended with the singers and the other instruments in the orchestra in an entirely different way.
In Cavalli's time, instruments and playing practices varied from year to year, from place to place, from player to player and from composer to composer. Add in the tremendous impact ensemble, acoustic, temperature and all the rest have, and the world of period performance quickly becomes enormous. It's a world fuelled by sterling research and brilliant practitioners ever eager to discover new ways to make the music sound its best. The opportunity to hear a leading group such as the Early Opera Company play in the unique space of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is a very exciting one indeed.
L'Ormindo runs 25 March–12 April 2014 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe. Tickets are still available via the Globe's website.
The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Sir Simon and Lady Robertson.
The last opera Richard Strauss worked on is called Des Esels Schatten (The Donkey's Shadow).
It was a comic opera, not intended for the grand companies of Berlin, Munich or Vienna, with which Strauss's professional career had been associated, but for his grandson Christian's school. Sadly Strauss died in 1949 before he could finish his tale, based on a satirical story by Christoph Martin Wieland of a hapless donkey whose shadow provides shelter from the sun for a Greek dentist. The sketches were later expanded, completed and orchestrated by Karl Haussner and the opera was performed in 1964 in Christian Strauss's former school to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, whose 150th birthday we mark this year.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer will be celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (14 March-2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.
Though Richard Strauss was raised in Munich and found his calling in Berlin, Dresden - the capital of the state of Saxony - was the city that was perhaps dearest to him.
It was at the Dresdner Semperoper that his operas Feuersnot, Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier all had their premieres. Their collective success cemented Strauss's relationship with the Semperoper, continuing with the first performances there of Intermezzo, Die ägyptische Helena, Arabella, Die schweigsame Frau and Daphne.
Strauss adored Dresden's baroque cityscapes, as well as its justly famous orchestra, the Staatskapelle. And the city was perfectly placed geographically, pulling people from across Central Europe to hear Strauss's new operas. Indeed their appeal was so potent that a special train was laid on from Berlin to Dresden for the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier in 1911. When Allied bombers destroyed the Saxon capital in February 1945, Strauss was distraught and it is believed that the razing of his three favourite cities - Munich, Dresden and Vienna - that prompted the composition of Metamorphosen in 1945.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer will be celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (14 March-2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for Die Frau ohne Schatten are still available. Tickets for Ariadne auf Naxos go on general sale 8 April.]]>
The career and legacy of former Music Director of The Royal Opera Bernard Haitink is to be celebrated at the performance of Die Frau ohne Schatten on 17 March. The conductor marks his 85th birthday today (4 March 2014).
Haitink, who will be in attendance for the performance, which will be conducted by Semyon Bychkov, held the post of Music Director of The Royal Opera at Covent Garden between 1987 and 2002 and conducted the Die Frau ohne Schatten himself for the Royal Opera House in 1992. He has also held high-profile positions with the Concertgebouw, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Glyndebourne, the Dresden Staatskapelle and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
During the 2013/14 Season he has conducted a series of concerts with the London Symphony, Boston Symphony and New York Philharmonic orchestras as well as conducting performances at the Barbican with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and in Germany with the Berlin Philharmonic.
He has also recorded prolifically for leading labels. Haitink's career has been notable for his dedication to the development of young musical talent, and he has given conducting classes across the globe.
Die Frau ohne Schatten runs from 14 March–2 April 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from Sir Simon and Lady Robertson, Hamish and Sophie Forsyth, The Friends of Covent Garden and an anonymous donor.]]>
What is opera in 2014? What is an opera house? What does it do and who is it for? What can opera say to the wider world? Who responds to it, writes about it, blogs about it, reviews it? Does anyone in The Archers or on Eastenders listen to opera or go to see one? If not, why not?
For the Criticism Now project at King's College London's Cultural Institute, Ruth Padel, a leading UK poet and Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at KCL – who is herself a singer and has written about opera, rock music and Greek drama – will join The Royal Opera as its first Writer in Residence.
The Royal Opera House has two performing spaces, the traditional main stage and the smaller Linbury Studio Theatre, for more intimate contemporary work. This spring The Royal Opera is rehearsing three works based on themes explored in the Faust legend. For the first time, The Royal Opera has commissioned two modern operas for the Linbury, linked to a simultaneous large-scale production on the main stage. David McVicar's lavish production of Gounod's Faust opens on 4 April, and, alongside preparations for opening night, two new operas – opening on 3 and 5 April – are being created by two very different contemporary composers, Luke Bedford and Matthew Herbert.
Invited to write operas on the themes of Faust, Luke and Matthew have come up with original and exciting takes on the ancient story. Luke's Through His Teeth begins in a television interview after a high-profile fraud trial. Matthew's The Crackle opens in a school classroom and uses Chirp, an iPhone/Android app that turns pictures on your mobile device into sounds.
Ruth will be with singers, conductors, composers, directors and designers from the beginning of rehearsals. She will tweet from rehearsals (@ruthpadel), and a series of blog posts on the subject 'What is an Opera?' will explore how a work develops within The Royal Opera.
Ruth will interview the many people – among them designers, directors, conductors, singers, lighting engineers, stage managers and stage crew – whose hard work goes into making a single production.
In her blog posts, she will ask what opera is, why we need it in the 21st century and how audience members can respond to it. Most people feel comfortable sharing their opinions, criticism and enjoyment of new films and TV programmes; is there more of a reluctance to talk about opera?
Ruth will also be helping the ROH run a competition for the most perfect and crystalline Tweet responses to all three Faust operas. Prizes will include tickets for an opera, a DVD of an ROH performance of Gounod's Faust and tickets for the popular ROH Backstage Tour.
Find out about all the events in the Faustian Pack series.]]>
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme has offered contracts to two new music staff: Jonathan Santagada joins the programme as opera conductor/répétiteur, and Colin J. Scott joins as ballet pianist. Michele Gamba, who joined the programme as conductor/répétiteur in September 2012, has accepted a position as Jette Parker Associate Conductor for one year.
Jonathan has studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Turin and the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, and privately with Marco Boemi in Rome. He recently made his conducting debut at the main opera house in Basel with Lo speziale, and is currently the Sir John Fisher Foundation Junior Fellow Répétiteur at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). As JPYA opera conductor/répétiteur, he will join Royal Opera music staff for rehearsals and performances, coach fellow Young Artists and play for their language, stagecraft and movement sessions. He will also be mentored by Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano and receive language and movement coaching.
Colin, who studied at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music, has worked as a ballet pianist with a range of schools and professional companies, including English National Ballet and the Royal Academy of Dance. Particularly interested in song-writing and composition, he enjoys exploring new ways of creating music for dance. As ballet pianist, he will be mentored by Royal Ballet Music Director Barry Wordsworth and join Royal Ballet music staff for rehearsals and performances. He will also play for Young Artist coaching sessions and benefit from the language and movement coaching on offer. Find out more about the role of the ballet pianist.
Both Colin and Jonathan were selected from more than 100 applicants. 'It was a challenging process', said Jonathan when discussing the experience with RNCM. 'I received a lot of help from the RNCM as I prepared for the audition, which helped enormously. The experience was fantastic, especially as I got to audition for Antonio Pappano in the final round. I'm thrilled to have been selected.'
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is supported by Oak Foundation. Find out more about the programme.]]>
Richard Strauss was a fierce advocate and defender of a composer's ability to assert copyright.
He was often embroiled in battles with publishers and at turn of the last century helped establish the first society to protect the rights of German composers. The Genossenschaft Deutscher Tonsetzer became the model for other international societies.
These efforts are indicative of Strauss's business-minded approach to composition. It was therefore particularly galling for him to realize that when Bote & Bock published his op. 56 songs, they had immediately acquired the rights to his next six Lieder. Indignant, Strauss composed Krämerspiegel in 1918, a song cycle which lampoons the publishing industry. Bote & Bock refused to accept the songs and Strauss was forced to compose six more in order to honour his contract, offering three Goethe settings and three songs based on Ophelia's mad scene in Hamlet. While subtler in message than Krämerspiegel, the three Goethe poems, taken from the Buch des Unmuts (Book of Bad Temper) and Ophelia's wild rants nonetheless helped Strauss vent his anger over the publisher's greed and his own shortsightedness.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer will be celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (14 March-2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.]]>
Johannes Brahms (1830–1897) was a German composer who wrote for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, voice and chorus. While Strauss would later dedicate his career to opera, during his youth he pored over the music of the Austro-Germanic symphonic tradition, particularly that of Brahms, its then greatest living exponent.
While Strauss was Hofmusikdirektor in Meiningen from 1885 to 1886, he had the great fortune to meet Brahms, who had a strong working relationship with the city's orchestra. Brahms was critical of Strauss's musical style, but the younger composer nonetheless maintained what he called his Brahmsschwärmerei ('Brahms adoration'), until his friend Alexander Ritter, the husband of Wagner's niece, placed him on a very different path.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer will be celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (14 March-2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.]]>
Paul Bunyan was the product of several months work in the squalid bolt hole in Brooklyn where poet W.H. Auden was lord and master. The environment – debauched, alcoholic and noisy – was not at all to the tastes of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, who made their escape as soon as the premiere of Paul Bunyan (in May 1941) allowed. The operetta was one of Britten and Auden's last collaborations before a permanent falling out in early 1942, after which – despite a seven-year friendship – the men seem never to have seen each other again.
Britten first met Auden through their work for John Grierson's GPO Film Unit, a pioneering project that gathered together young artists to produce socially-minded films. For Britten, who joined in May 1935 aged only 22, it was the launch pad for his journey into a professional intellectual world. In his diaries Britten wrote of his admiration for Auden's 'startling personality' and 'remarkably fine brain'; 'I always feel very young and stupid when with these brains – I mostly sit silent when they hold forth about subjects in general. What brains!'
Britten produced some fine scores with Auden – most famously the GPO films Coal Face (1935) and Night Mail (1936), and incidental music to Auden and Christopher Isherwood's play The Ascent of F6 (1937). Auden's galvanizing influence on Britten's political views is evident in the brutal despair of Our Hunting Fathers (1936), a song-set for whose first and last movements Auden provided the text. Auden also hugely expanded Britten's library of poetry; his passionate advocacy of Rimbaud led directly to the brilliant song cycle Les Illuminations (1939).
During their friendship Auden dedicated several poems to Britten. They were largely intended to goad the young composer, the patronizing urgency of Underneath an Abject Willow (1936) being a prime example. Britten's breezy, upbeat setting of the same year seems an expression of determined resistance. There doesn't seem to have been a physical relationship between the two (though not for lack of trying on Auden's part), but Auden undoubtedly played an integral part in spurring Britten to explore his sexuality.
Auden and Isherwood left for the USA in January 1939. Britten and Pears followed three months later. Though Britten did not take to life as an ex-pat as well as Auden, his three years in the country permanently established him on the international stage. Paul Bunyan, though, was not one of those successes. It was savaged by critics despite sublimely silly satire in Auden's verse and a sparkling score rich in invention.
In January 1942 Auden wrote to Britten a famously severe letter warning, not without cruelty, against Britten's instinctive bourgeois tendencies: 'You see, Bengy dear, you are always tempted to make things too easy for yourself… by playing the lovable talented little boy… If you are really to develop to your full stature, you will have, I think, to suffer, and make others suffer… you will have to be able to say what you never have had the right to say – God, I'm a shit.'
Britten wrote his final setting of Auden's words on the boat back to England in April 1942. The Hymn to St Cecilia (Auden's nod to Britten's birthday saint) is a breathtaking work for unaccompanied choir, as glorious in its setting of Auden's poetry as the words are themselves. That the two men never worked together again was a source of contention during their lives and of speculation since their deaths (even resulting in an Alan Bennett play, The Habit of Art). But the few works that we have – with Paul Bunyan one of the finest examples – make an invaluable collection, a meeting of minds between two of England's greatest creative spirits.
English Touring Opera will present their production of Paul Bunyan in the Linbury Studio Theatre between 17–21 February 2014. Tickets are sold out, but returns may become available.]]>
Pauline de Ahna (1863–1950) was Richard Strauss's wife. She was a soprano, who trained in Munich, as well as having private lessons with her future husband.
De Ahna and Strauss first met on the shores of the Starnbergersee, the great lake south of Munich, during the summer of 1887. Three years later, Pauline was making her professional debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in Weimar. She sang the role of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser at Bayreuth in 1891, as well as one of the Flowermaidens in Parsifal.
In 1894, she created the role of Freihild in Strauss's first - highly Wagnerian - opera Guntram and the couple married on 10 September that year. Strauss gave his wife a set of four Lieder (op. 27) as a wedding present, including the glorious song 'Morgen'. It is no exaggeration to say that, even after Pauline's retirement from the stage in 1897, Strauss continued to hear her voice whenever he composed. She is immortalised in his large output of songs and, of course, in the major roles he wrote for sopranos, from Salome through to Ariadne and the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and finally, the Countess in his last opera Capriccio. More touchingly (and amusingly), Pauline appears as Christine Storch - a composer's wife - in Strauss's semi-autobiographical opera Intermezzo.
View other posts in our weekly Richard Strauss A-Z series
2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth. The composer will be celebrated with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (14 March-2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.]]>
Richard Strauss (1864–1949) displayed great gifts as a composer for voice early in his career, writing exquisite songs from the early 1880s. However, until 1894 his larger-scale works were primarily orchestral tone poems, such as Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung (both 1889). Strauss began work on his first opera, Guntram, in 1887. The opera had its premiere in 1894 in Weimar, on the same day that Strauss announced his engagement to the soprano Pauline de Ahna, who sang the role of Freihild. Guntram showed the influence of the music dramas of Wagner and the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. It was not a success, and Strauss's second opera, the satirical Feuersnot (1901), also had a lukewarm reception, largely because of the sheer difficulty of the music.
Strauss's next work, Salome (1905), was a great succès de scandale. The opera's colourful orchestration, bold and arresting narrative and chromatic harmonic language led Strauss to be hailed as a new modernist voice in opera, while the opera's heroine was seen as an archetypal femme fatale. Although Salome was banned or censored by several opera companies, it remained popular with audiences and Strauss's fortune was made. Strauss was even more daring in his next opera, Elektra (1909): he employed a huge orchestra and composed immensely demanding music for the three principal female characters. The first Klytämnestra, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, declared 'there is nothing beyond Elektra'.
Elektra marked the beginning of Strauss's fruitful collaboration with the Austrian playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal. For their next work they left the angst-ridden world of Greek tragedy and turned to Rococo Vienna. Der Rosenkavalier (1911) explores the love triangle between the ageing but still beautiful Marschallin, the young nobleman Octavian (the 'Rosenkavalier'), and the beautiful adolescent Sophie von Faninal. There is also plenty of comedy, as Octavian outwits Sophie's boorish suitor Baron Ochs. Strauss chose a broadly diatonic language for Der Rosenkavalier, employing characteristically 'pictorial' orchestral effects, and also made witty use of that most Viennese of dances, the waltz. The writing for the three principal female roles is far more lyrical than in Elektra, above all in the Act III trio 'Hab' mir's gelobt', when the voices combine to sublime effect.
Strauss and Hofmannsthal's next collaboration was a theatrical hybrid. Ariadne auf Naxos (first version, 1912) combined Hofmannsthal's version of Molière's play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme with an opera about the Greek heroine Ariadne, staged simultaneously with a humorous performance by a commedia dell'arte troupe. Ariadne had a mixed reception, as audiences were uncertain whether they were watching a play or an opera. In 1916 Strauss and Hofmannsthal revised the work as a full-scale opera, replacing the Molière material with an operatic Prologue. Strauss further developed the lyricism and vocal beauty he had explored in Der Rosenkavalier, particularly in the writing for Ariadne and Bacchus. He also experimented with smaller orchestral forces (a 36-piece chamber orchestra), and had fun creating the acrobatic coloratura role of Zerbinetta.
Strauss termed his next opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919) 'the last Romantic opera'. He intended it to be similar in tone to Die Zauberflöte, with the story of two couples, one too high-minded and one too earthbound, who learn the meaning of love. Hofmannsthal's libretto is one of his most symbolic and complex, though the poet showed a lighter side when he modelled the character of the Dyer's Wife on Strauss's volatile wife Pauline. Die Frau ohne Schatten is a major undertaking for any opera house, with its massive orchestra, unusual length and extremely difficult principal roles – but it contains some of Strauss's loveliest music, particularly for the Empress and Barak the Dyer.
After the premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Strauss announced to Hofmannsthal his plan to write a 'modern domestic comedy'. Hofmannsthal refused to collaborate, so Strauss wrote his own libretto, based on an incident in his marriage. Intermezzo (1924) is less vocally lyrical than Strauss's previous three operas; instead, much of the vocal writing resembles a 'sung play', with the melodic beauty reserved for a series of orchestral interludes and for the final reconciliation scene.
Strauss and Hofmannsthal resumed their collaboration with Die ägyptische Helena (first performed in 1928), about the adventures of Helen of Troy after the Trojan War. The opera contains some lovely music, including Helena's Act II aria, but a convoluted and at times somewhat clumsy plot, coupled with one of Strauss's famous 'killer' tenor roles for the Spartan King Menelaus, have prevented the work gaining a firm foothold in repertory. Strauss and Hofmannsthal's last collaboration, Arabella (1933), had the same Viennese setting as Der Rosenkavalier (though now in the 19th century). Strauss's love of operetta is clear in the score, which shares much of the lyricism of Rosenkavalier – and has an even more complicated plot. Arabella is Strauss's best-loved stage work from the 1920s and 30s and contains some exquisite music; particularly beautiful is the duet for Arabella and her sister in Act I ('Aber der Richtige') and the Act II duet for Arabella and Mandryka, 'Und du wirst mein Gebieter sein', based on a Croatian folk tune.
After Hofmannsthal's untimely death in 1929 Strauss struggled to find a new collaborator. He thought he'd found one in Stefan Zweig, another Viennese writer, with whom he created the witty comic opera Die schweigsame Frau (1935) – but Hitler's rise to power prompted the Jewish Zweig to leave Europe, and the opera was subsequently banned by the Nazis. Strauss began another partnership with the historian Joseph Gregor, which he found somewhat frustrating. The Nazis banned their first collaboration, the Fidelio-like one-act Friedenstag (1938), due to its pacifist sentiments, and Strauss complained much about Gregor's 'schoolmasterly banalities' in Daphne (1938) and Die Liebe der Danae (completed 1940, dress rehearsal 1944 for a performance cancelled by Goebbels and finally first performed in 1952). However, both operas contain beautiful and very moving music, such as the heroine's metamorphosis into a laurel at the end of Daphne, and Jupiter's farewell to earthly love and his beloved Danae in Die Liebe der Danae.
Strauss believed that Die Liebe der Danae would be his last opera. In fact, in 1939 he and the conductor Clemens Krauss began work on Capriccio, a 'conversation piece in one act' set in Paris in 1775. Capriccio addresses the question of which in opera is more important: words or music. Strauss wrote the music, Krauss (with much input by Strauss) the libretto. The premiere, in war-torn Munich in 1942, was a great success. With a sparkling score that contains glorious melodies, witty pastiches of 18th-century dance and opera seria and a host of vivid characters – including Countess Madeleine, one of Strauss's greatest soprano roles – Capriccio is a fitting close to the career of one of the greatest opera composers of the 20th century.]]>
A fugue has the reputation of being a very complicated musical idea – and indeed it is if you're planning to compose one. It's the musical equivalent of constructing the Times crossword and a difficult Sudoku puzzle at the same time. But listening to one and following how it is put together is intriguing and fun – it can have the obsessive interest of untangling string and the logical surprises of trying to follow the staircases in an M.C. Escher drawing: interesting patterns, intriguingly fitted together.
In essence, a fugue is a conversation in which everyone talks about the same thing at once, and you have to listen carefully to follow all the different speakers. Sometimes one of the speakers is more prominent; sometimes everyone piles in together. But importantly the speakers keep repeating what the others have said – a fugue is about one part imitating another.
Fugues developed from musical counterpoint of the 16th century, in which parts imitating each other (polyphony) was a big contrast with music written in block chords (homophony). The German organist Michael Praetorius wrote in the early 1600s that 'in constructing a good fugue one must with special diligence and careful thought seek to bring together as many ways as possible in which the same material can be combined with itself: interwoven, duplicated, used in direct and contrary motion; in short, brought together in an orderly, artistic and graceful way and carried through to the end.'
J.S. Bach in particular is associated with fugues, with his collection of 48 Preludes and Fugues among his most famous and influential works. Bach wrote very many fugues for keyboard (organ and harpsichord) and included them in his choral works. In the case of The Art of Fugue, Bach never specified what instruments it was to be played on, and some people have thought it more a game at inventing complex musical ideas than something actually to perform. But it also means you can hear many different versions – single keyboard (organ, harpsichord, piano), two harpsichords, string quartets, instrumental ensembles, and even jazz ensembles.
The parts that make up a fugue have particular names that give some indication of what their musical function is:
One endearing example of a fugue is seen in the final movement of Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra:
But Bach will always be the acknowledged master of these musical conundrums. The Art of Fugue is a wonderful compendium of absolutely everything you need to know about fugues.
Tetractys – The Art of Fugue is staged as part of a Royal Ballet Mixed Programme alongside Rhapsody and Gloria. It runs 7–15 February 2014. A limited number of tickets are still available.
Tetractys – The Art of Fugue is supported by Outset in partnership with The Luxury Collection, and staged with generous philanthropic support from David Hancock, Linda and Philip Harley and two anonymous donors.]]>
Claudio Abbado first appeared in the pit at Covent Garden in 1968. Aged 35, he made a huge impression as a conductor in the finest Italian tradition. He was offered the post of musical director of The Royal Opera when Colin Davis retired in 1987. However Abbado had already filled a similar position at La Scala and preferred to concentrate on performances in the concert hall.
Abbado's first Covent Garden performances in 1968 visit saw him conduct a revival of the famous Visconti production of Don Carlo with a cast led by Carlo Cossutta, Gwyneth Jones and Shirley Verrett. He returned in 1974 for a fine new production of Un ballo in maschera which had an exceptional cast, with Plácido Domingo, Piero Cappuccilli and Katia Ricciarelli in the principal roles.
In 1976 La Scala did an exchange with The Royal Opera and Abbado led the Italian company for a triumphant season at Covent Garden. He conducted all the performances, which included Verdi's Requiem, La Cenerentola (with Teresa Berganza in the title role) and the incomparable Giorgio Strehler production of Simon Boccanegra.
In 1983 he conducted an exciting new production – Boris Godunov, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with Robert Lloyd in the title role. A decade later Abbado returned for a revival of the bewitching Václav Kašlík and Josef Svoboda production of Pelléas et Mélisande with Frederica von Stade and François Le Roux.
The diversity of Abbado's interests and repertory was typical of a maestro who strove for a fresh interpretation of the traditional repertoire: as was evidenced when he was music director of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.
One critic wrote after his Royal Opera performances of Un ballo in maschera: 'Abbado digs into the guts of the score.' It was that intensity and musical scholarship that Abbado brought to all his evenings at Covent Garden. His love for the music and ability to coax the orchestra to magnificent playing made his appearances in the House special.
We asked you for your memories of seeing Claudio Abbado perform:
@RoyalOperaHouse I will never forget his conducting of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. His Mahler's 5th was also very special.
— Antonio Planchart (@aplanchart) January 20, 2014
@RoyalOperaHouse @bbcproms Abbado conducting Mahler 9. At the end he held his baton for 2 mins @RoyalAlbertHall was silent before cheering.
— LongDistanceKnitter (@ldknitter) January 20, 2014
@RoyalOperaHouse my intro. to opera was a young Abbado conducting the 1974 Barber of Seville film, so I have a lot to thank him for!
— Holly (@albalilian) January 20, 2014
@RoyalOperaHouse The Magic Flute at Edinburgh Festival 2006
— Himadri Chatterjee (@hairygit) January 20, 2014
@RoyalOperaHouse twice last year - with Martha Argerich / Orch Mozart, and with Lucerne Festival Orchestra - unforgettable Bruckner 9. RIP.
— ED (@edwardzchin) January 20, 2014
The Italian conductor Claudio Abbado has died.
Between 1968 and 1993 Abbado appeared several times at the Royal Opera House, conducting Don Carlos, Un ballo in maschera, Boris Godunov and Pelléas et Mélisande for The Royal Opera.
'Claudio Abbado was for Italy and the world a unique spirit and a visionary,' said Music Director of The Royal Opera Antonio Pappano, 'He seemed to truly have the Midas touch as everything he brought to life shined with a fierce light. Whether in the opera house, on the concert platform, in a recording studio, or surrounded by the créme de la créme of young musicians for whom he created orchestras, he is by any standard a giant. A tremendous loss.'
'He was an extraordinary musician and the whole world will mourn the passing of such a talented and vibrant artist who touched the lives of so many people. As a conductor Claudio Abbado was unparalleled in the range of work he conducted. He made a significant contribution to The Royal Opera, from his very first appearance at Covent Garden in 1968, with a great many unforgettable performances,' said Director of Opera Kasper Holten.
'Personally, I remember listening to so many of his recordings as a young teenager, and his readings introduced me to many of the great masterpieces. I remember especially listening to his amazing, vibrant and funny recording Il Viaggio a Reims, and later hearing him live conducting a passionate Carmen in Vienna. Truly a unique artist who will be sorely missed.'
He was one of the most outstanding conductors of his generation, and during his career held the posts of Music Director of La Scala, Milan; the Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra; and the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He was the founder of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
A look at the conductor's Covent Garden performances]]>
On 6 January, Jette Parker Young Artist Luis Gomes opened the 2014 programme of lunchtime recitals with a performance in the Linbury Studio Theatre.
Accompanied by Artistic Director of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme David Gowland, he performed works by Richard Strauss, Federico Mompou and Sergei Rachmaninov. He dedicated the performance to his fellow student at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Eva Ganizate, who was killed in a cycling accident in France at the weekend.
'Singing in recital gives you a chance to re-invent the best poetry and music in the world by adding your own interpretation and ideas to it,' said Luis. 'The work you do on the music and the texts is similar to when you are preparing for an opera on stage, but you are much more exposed in recital and you have less help and support. You are your own director and so it is a big challenge to bring out the full potential of the poetry and music.'
Jette Parker Young Artist Luis Gomes performing in recital, accompanied by David Gowland © ROH / Lottie Butler 2014
Jette Parker Young Artist Luis Gomes performing in recital, accompanied by David Gowland © ROH / Lottie Butler 2014
Jette Parker Young Artist Luis Gomes performing in recital, accompanied by David Gowland © ROH / Lottie Butler 2014
The lunchtime recitals offer Young Artists the chance to learn repertory of their choice with some of the world's top vocal, language and stagecraft coaches. Earlier this Season, Jette Parker Principal Jihoon Kim, accompanied by former Young Artist Jean-Paul Pruna and six Korean musicians, performed a programme based on Korean art songs, including traditional Korean costumes and instruments.
'It was very special for me to be able to show my Korean musical background and to introduce traditional Korean music, instruments and costumes to a British audience,' he said. 'I have previously given two recitals of European music as a Jette Parker Young Artist, but to have presented a traditional Korean recital in Europe is a dream come true.'
The recitals offer an opportunity for the Young Artists to engage with and sustain an audience for an hour on their own; a very different experience from performing on the ROH Main Stage.
Tenor David Butt Philip will perform work by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten in a recital on Monday 20 January.
'Singing in recital provides a more intimate and direct relationship with the audience than performing on the operatic stage. Without the support of an orchestra, costumes and staging, you're completely reliant on communication of the text to engage the listener,' he said. 'Such performances enhance our skills as storytellers and allow us to experiment with a wide range of vocal colours, a flexibility that's not always practical on the main stage.'
The lunchtime recitals take place in the Crush Room, Linbury Studio Theatre or the Paul Hamlyn Hall. They are free to attend and tickets can be reserved online up to nine days before the concert. However, although advance tickets are often sold out, tickets are available in person on the day.
Forthcoming Jette Parker Young Artist recitals include performances by Kiandra Howarth, David Butt Philip and Rachel Kelly, and former Young Artists Madeleine Pierard and Jean-Paul Pruna, Helen Nicholas, and Matthew Rose with the renowned chamber ensemble the Angell Trio.
The recitals also feature performances by members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, The Royal Opera Chorus and Southbank Sinfonia. View the full lunchtime recital listings.
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is supported by Oak Foundation. Find out more about the programme in our News and Features section.]]>
Music is central to the celebration of Christmas, be it cheesy pop standards or favourite carols. Benjamin Britten, whose centenary year we have been celebrating, wrote extensively for this time of year, whether arranging carols or writing new cantatas. As a final hurrah for this great composer's centenary year, my recommended recordings this month feature Britten's Christmas music first and foremost.
The Choir of King's College – Saint Nicolas (King's College)
Britten enjoyed a long and successful collaboration with Cambridge, and in particular with the Choir of King's College. This new recording of his cantata is an ideal alternative to the familiar: the cantata's nine parts trace the life of Saint Nicolas, the saint who became known in the west as Santa Claus, but there the obvious Christmas connection ends. The music, which allows for audience participation in sweeping arrangements of hymns such as 'All people that on earth do dwell', is engaging in its seeming simplicity: scored for tenor (here the superb Andrew Kennedy follows in the footsteps of Peter Pears, who created the part), choir, organ and orchestra. Steven Cleobury leads the Choir of King's College and the Britten Sinfonia in a performance of great variety and a real sense of occasion. It's the perfect antidote to too many mince pies, and will continue to delight you long after the festive season has passed. An extra bonus, the CD also includes the great Hymn to Saint Cecilia and the extraordinary Rejoice in the Lamb.
The Choir of King's College – A Ceremony of Carols (Decca)
Britten's most celebrated Christmas music is surely the Ceremony of Carols, an arrangement of medieval texts that has become a staple of choirs around the world. Britten preferred his original arrangement - for a boys' choir - and it is this version that appears on Decca's annual King's College compilation, again under the direction of Steven Cleobury. It emerges as fresh as ever, but I have to profess a preference for 'A Boy was Born', which includes an exquisite arrangement of Christina Rossetti's poem In the Bleak Midwinter. It's a generous disc and also offers contributions from Britten and Pears themselves, before wrapping up with a perfectly judged 'The Holly and the Ivy'. A perfect disc for Christmas, whether you like the traditional or are looking for something a little different.
Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort with the trebles of the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir – Incarnation (Signum)
Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort (with the trebles of the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir) provide my personal 'best of the season'. Carols old and new, spanning eight centuries from anonymous medieval carols (including the lovely and familiar 'Veni, Veni, Emanuel') to new arrangements by Pott, Dove and Leighton make up the programme. Performed with extreme beauty and remarkable intimacy, this is an inspirational disc that gave me real pleasure on first hearing, that only increases on repeated playing. Dove's The Three Kings is an incandescent piece of music making, and the disc concludes with the complete Britten A Boy was Born, in as atmospheric a performance as you may hope to hear.
What recently-released recordings would you recommend? What is your favourite soundtrack to Christmas?]]>
Today marks 100 years since the birth of Benjamin Britten, one of the great composers of the 20th century.
Britten's compositions span classical music forms, from large-scale symphonic scores to songs and choral works. He first achieved international fame in 1945 with the acclaimed premiere of his opera Peter Grimes. One hundred years after his birth, more operas by Britten are performed worldwide than by any other composer born in the 20th century, and he is widely credited with founding a new English-language opera tradition. He also introduced generations of children to music through such works as Noye's Fludde and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which is now the focus of an iPad app. 'His music really gets under your skin, which makes him stand out,' says Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano.
The Britten 100 celebrations have seen fans and arts institutions alike come together to commemorate Britten and his music. Today there will be performances of his music across the globe. His work will also feature on BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week and In Tune, alongside a live broadcast of the BBC Symphony Orchestra Centenary Concert. These follow a number of musical tributes to the anniversary including performances at the Royal Opera House of his opera Gloriana and the Canticles, and the unique Grimes on the Beach at the Aldeburgh Festival.
A feature-length drama/documentary entitled Benjamin Britten – Peace and Conflict has been released and Britten is even depicted on the Royal Mint's new 50p coin, the first composer to feature and the only non-royal to have their full name on a coin.
Britten's legacy has reached outside the realm of music too. In just a couple of recent examples, film director Wes Anderson describes The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra as the musical backbone of his film Moonrise Kingdom; and Patrick Stewart describes how - during his performance in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream - he longed to be a countertenor singing in Britten's operatic version.
Watch our playlist of Britten-related films:
What makes Benjamin Britten such an important composer? What works of his are your favourite and why?]]>
It's so simple – but the effect is immense. The four bells that toll through the transition scenes of Parsifal, Wagner's great final masterpiece, have an earth-shattering impact.
Parsifal twice journeys to the Grail Hall, in Acts I and III, and each time entails a majestic (and lengthy) scene change. The purely orchestral music is derived from a simple four-note theme, and towards the climax of each passage we hear the pattern played on four bells. The air hums with their complex overtones – bells sound not one note but a whole chord behind the main pitch – and at the height of their tremendous crescendos they almost make the building shake. Their many-note quality makes bells the perfect instrument to reflect the same-yet-different nature of the two transitions: in Act I dignified and heroic; in Act III, as the Grail community disintegrates, desolate and horrifying.
What were the actual sounds Wagner had in mind? Bells at the low pitch he required were hardly conventional orchestral instruments – for good reason, given the lowest pitch bell would weigh more than twenty-six tonnes and have a diameter of around eight metres. Tubular bells or bell plates, popular orchestral bell substitutes, would not cut it. Wagner needed something otherworldly – but also something that could fit in the pit.
There's no easy solution. Wagner first thought to use tamtams, but after procuring some from London (apparently the nearest tamtam centre) he decided that alone they weren't enough. He then commissioned a special piano-like instrument from his friend Eduard Steingraeber, with a piano's metal frame and 24 strings all tuned to four notes, and a keyboard with just four (massive) keys.
For the premiere the Steingraeber was played alongside tamtams, gongs and a tuba, but the result evidently didn't match the sounds of Wagner's imagination. During rehearsals his wife Cosima wrote in her diary 'The orchestra…breaks into hearty applause after the transition scene, which does R. good, though he has many difficulties to contend with: the bells are not right'.
A few years after the 1882 premiere - and Wagner's death the following year - Cosima supervised the construction of four huge metal barrels. These remained in place at Bayreuth for several decades. Other opera houses, once the 30-year embargo on performances outside Bayreuth had expired, had to find their own solutions, usually some combination of tubular bells and gongs.
The development of synthesizers in the early 20th century generated a new set of sounds, though it was some time before they made it to the Grail Hall. The Trautonium, invented by engineer Friedrich Trautwein in 1929, was used by composers throughout the 1930s, particularly Paul Hindemith who worked in collaboration with Oskar Sala, the instrument's main proponent. It wasn't until after Richard Strauss had used it to re-create bell sounds for his Japanische Festmusik (1940) that the Trautonium's Parsifal potential was realized, with Sala taking over bells duty at Bayreuth from 1952.
Synthesizers are now the most widely used bells, and combined with a PA sound system they can have the requisite earthquake-like effect. They're not without their perils, however, and if misjudged can sound less like bells of solemn majesty and more like an ice-cream van.
Synthesizers have been used at The Royal Opera for the previous two productions – but for Stephen Langridge's new production Music Director Antonio Pappano has introduced a combination of live instruments, returning to Wagner's original solution but now supported by modern technology. Tubular bells and bell plates will be played together with a close-miked piano, and the combined sound will be relayed through the Royal Opera House's sound system. Judging from the rehearsals, it's going to be thrilling.
Parsifal runs from 30 November to 18 December 2013. Tickets are still available.
The production will also be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 18 December. Find your nearest cinema.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support of the Metherell Family, Roland & Sophie Rudd, Dr and Mrs Michael West, Marina Hobson MBE, Ian and Helen Andrews, Peter and Fiona Espenhahn, Annie Frankel, Malcolm Herring, Dr L Mikheev and N Mikheev, Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson, The Wagner Circle and The Parsifal Production Syndicate and generously supported in memory of Simon Tullah.]]>
As part of our monthly series of recommended recordings from the Royal Opera House Shop, this month we take a look at releases from three great artists.
Jonas Kaufmann – The Verdi Album (Sony)
Jonas Kaufmann astonished with his all-Wagner recital earlier in the year. He follows it now with his Verdi Album, his first release on Sony. Some of the repertoire is not an easy fit – don't expect to see Kaufmann tackle the too-lyric Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera any time soon – but when the role is right, Kaufmann is unbeatable. The thirteen selections here cover both familiar and less well known Verdi arias, and it is evident that the tenor has thought each through from both a dramatic and a musical standpoint. This is visceral and virile singing, never more so than in his two selections from Otello: a role debut we can only hope is not far distant. Listen to Jonas Kaufmann's Verdi Album on Spotify.
Plácido Domingo – Verdi (Sony)
In an ironic nod to a natural succession, Sony have released Placido Domingo's new all-Verdi album at the same time as the Kaufmann disc. The great tenor is now singing the baritone repertoire, and this disc is a rich sampler of his stage roles of this voice type plus others he may never attempt. His voice is no longer able to sustain long lines and sometimes colours can't quite manifest; but - and it's a big but - this is quintessential Verdi singing from a master of his art. The deficiencies of age pale, and what remains is a blazing celebration of Verdi singing that breathes with an innate understanding of style and identification. A great recording all told, and not one I expected to deliver quite so eloquently. Listen to Plàcido Domingo's Verdi on Spotify.
Susan Chilcott – The Shining River (Opus Arte)
The late – and great – soprano left little recorded legacy on her sadly early death in 2003. Poised on the brink of a great career, Chilcott had recorded the first 25 tracks (all Copland songs) of this Opus Arte release, they were to mark her last recordings. They are reissued here, and enhanced by a further six tracks taken from a recital at her 'home' house, La Monnaie in Brussels, covering Strauss, Berlioz, Argento, Vaughan Williams, Britten and one last number by Copland. Throughout she is a both instinctive and commanding artist, beautifully supported by Iain Burnside as her accompanist. A very special release and a disc of rare skill and charm. Listen to Susan Chilcott's The Shining River on Spotify.
What recently released recordings would you recommend?
The Royal Opera House Shop stocks a full range of recordings as well as DVDs and other merchandise.]]>
Ben Frost's new piece The Wasp Factory is every bit as disturbing as the book it is based on.
He speaks here about working with a source text for the first time and his approach to composition, which incorporates noises as well as notes: "There's an inherent democracy in my approach to music making... I don't make the voice of a string quintet any more important than the hiss of a snake or the cracking of ice or the sound of fire."
Ben's music was heard previously at the Royal Opera House, when he created the score for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance's FAR.
The Wasp Factory is one of more than 15 new works announced by The Royal Opera at the start of the year, to be staged between now and 2020.
Have you seen The Wasp Factory? Let us know what you thought.
Remaining performances of The Wasp Factory have very limited availability.
The production is a co-production between HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Laura Berman_Next, Berlin, and The Royal Opera and Holland Festival in collaboration with Cork Midsummer Festival. It has been made possible by support from Capital Cultural Fund Berlin and Nordic Culture Point.]]>
Verdi's political drama Don Carlo will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 7 October at 6.15pm as part of Radio 3's Verdi 200 celebrations. It will also be available on demand via BBC iPlayer afterwards.
Listen to Don Carlo online on the BBC website
The production, described in the Independent as a 'sublime musical event featuring performances of transcendent beauty', boasts a stellar cast that includes Jonas Kaufmann in the title role and Anja Harteros as Elizabeth, conducted by The Royal Opera's Director of Music, Antonio Pappano.
Mariusz Kwiecien as Rodrigo and Anja Harteros as Elizabeth in Don Carlo © ROH / Catherine Ashmore 2013
Anja Harteros as Elizabeth and Jonas Kaufmann as Don Carlo in Don Carlo © ROH / Catherine Ashmore 2013
Ferruccio Furlanetto as Philip II and Anja Harteros as Elizabeth in Don Carlo © ROH / Catherine Ashmore 2013
The Story
A powerful historical drama that combines love, politics and religion, Don Carlo is based on a 1787 play by Friedrich von Schiller. Set amid the religious repression the Spanish Inquisition, the opera follows the tortured love affair between Prince of Spain Don Carlos and Elizabeth of Valois, and the conflict between their romantic desires and political choices. Find out more in our Opera Essentials series.
The Composition
First performed at the Paris Opéra in 1867, Don Carlo followed the tradition of French grand opera pioneered by Giacomo Meyerbeer. However, in rehearsals it was deemed too long and extensive cuts were made. Verdi continued to revise the opera over the following 20 years, eventually disposing of the first act altogether in 1884. This production by Nicholas Hytner follows the five-act 1886 version. Find out more about Verdi, 'the notorious reviser'.
Read audience reactions to the opening night and add your own.
Other BBC Radio 3 broadcasts this season include Les Vêpres siciliennes, Wozzeck and a live broadcast of Parsifal. Find out more about forthcoming broadcasts.]]>
David McVicar's enormous production of Berlioz's most ambitious work, Les Troyens, has been released on DVD and Blu-ray and is now available to buy in the Royal Opera House Shop.
Korngold's Die tote Stadt, performed by Finnish National Opera, has also been released on DVD. Directed by Royal Opera House Director of Opera Kasper Holten, the production stars Klaus Florian Vogt as Paul and Camilla Nylund as Marietta.
Based on Virgil's Aeneid, Les Troyens follows Trojan warrior Énée (Aeneas) from the destruction of his home city Troy to Carthage, where he falls in love with its Queen, Didon (Dido).
Epic in every sense of the word, the production brought together one of the largest casts and biggest sets ever seen on the Covent Garden stage. Find out more about the construction and transportation of two Ancient Greek cities.
Barbara Senator as Ascanius, Robert Lloyd as Priam, Sophia Mcgregor as Andromache, Sebastian Wright as Astanax, Pamela Helen Stephen as Hecuba and Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cassandra in Les Troyens © Bill Cooper/ROH 2012
Eva-Maria Westbroek as Dido, Bryan Hymel as Aeneas and Barbara Senator as Ascanius in Les Troyens © Bill Cooper/ROH 2012
Barbara Senator as Ascanius, Ashley Holland as Panthus, Bryan Hymel as Aeneas and Fabio Capitanucci as Coroebus in Les Troyens © Bill Cooper/ROH 2012
Conducted by Royal Opera House Director of Music, the production stars acclaimed Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek as Dido and American tenor Bryan Hymel as Aenas, who won an Outstanding Achievement in Opera Olivier Award following his performance in Les Troyens, Rusalka and Robert le diable. Watch an interview with Bryan Hymel about taking on the role of Aeneas.
The production also features an acclaimed performance by Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cassandra. Read audience reactions to the opening night.
The DVD includes introductions by Antonio Pappano and set designer Es Devlin, as well as footage from a Royal Opera House Insight Event featuring some of the cast.]]>
Telling the violent story of a daughter desperately obsessed with avenging her father's murder, Richard Strauss's Elektra is famously intense with a complex and challenging score. We spent time with Andris Nelsons in rehearsal with The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and he told us about the rewards and challenges of working on the opera.
'For conductors who love Strauss, this is one of the most exciting operas you can conduct,' says Andris. 'Starting from the extremely soft, intimate moments when the soloists can whisper, to the explosions when you think your ears will explode... Elektra is a special, extraordinary piece.'
Starring the acclaimed Christine Goerke in the title role, the production has received rave reviews since opening night, and was described in the Evening Standard as 'a gripping revival that is superbly sung and conducted'. Read audience reactions to the first night.
The opera's score features the 'Agamemnon motif' throughout, a powerful musical idea that vividly portrays the anguish of a feuding family and re-enforces the themes of obsession and revenge. Find out more about the Agamemnon motif.
The Royal Opera's Elektra runs from 23 September – 12 October 2013. Tickets are still available.]]>
It comes as no surprise that Giuseppe Verdi is a popular choice on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Considered by some to be the most influential composer of operas, Verdi wrote classic works, ranging from La traviata to Macbeth, Rigoletto to Don Carlo.
A look through the BBC Radio 4 archive shows that some 334 castaways have chosen music by Verdi to accompany them on their desert island. Those selecting works by the great Italian include Harry Potter actor and West End star Zoë Wanamaker, who chose 'Offertorio' from the Requiem Mass; and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, who explains that he was introduced to Verdi at as a teenager when his mother, on realizing he did not know 'Sempre libera' from La traviata, feared she was 'raising a barbarian'.
Michelin-starred TV chef Heston Blumenthal chose the 'Grand March' from Aida, while James Bond star Roger Moore chose the prelude to Act 1 of La traviata. Hollywood star Hugh Grant chose the famous 'Va, pensiero' chorus from Nabucco, which was recently performed by a flashmob in Covent Garden as part of Deloitte Ignite's Festival of Voices.
Giuseppe Verdi is currently one of the subjects of Deloitte Ignite 2013, a festival curated by Stephen Fry to mark the joint bicentenary of the births of both Verdi and Richard Wagner. As part of the final weekend, medical scientists will explore the reactions of opera fan Stephen Fry and opera novice Alan Davies to a performance of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. The event, entitled The Science of Opera will be live-streamed on Twitter.
This Season, one of Verdi's lesser-known works, Les Vêpres siciliennes, will be staged by The Royal Opera in a new production by Stefan Herheim. The production opens on 17 October and will be screened live in cinemas around the world on 4 November. Richard Eyre's production of La traviata will return in April 2014.
The BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Disc archive lists every castaway interviewed since 1942, with a number of programmes available to listen to online. Find out which castaways chose music by Wagner.]]>
Last Sunday a packed Covent Garden Piazza saw attention temporarily diverted from frenzied shopping and cross-disciplinary buskers by a large group of people singing (seemingly spontaneously) in Italian. The performance – or 'flashmob' - brought the Festival of Voices to a close; part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite festival.
Amateurs and professionals alike joined together to perform Verdi's rousing 'Va pensiero' chorus from Nabucco following a series of free performances and workshops. The event featured the BBC Symphony Chorus, topped by the fantastic sound of the Brass Section from the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Throughout the day members of the public attended concerts in the Royal Opera House's Paul Hamlyn Hall from community choirs Mind and Soul, the Choir with No Name, Chantage, Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus and the Deloitte Choir. The groups sang a wide variety of music, ranging from Lotti's Crucifixus to Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'.
Upstairs in the Clore Studio choral ambassador Dominic Peckham and vocal animateur Suzi Zumpe ran three inspiring workshops for Royal Opera House newcomers. Singers from the BBC Symphony Chorus and brass players from the BBC Concert Orchestra joined them as they learned Verdi's famous chorus ready for the early evening performance which stopped passers-by in their tracks.
We will be publishing a film looking behind the scenes of the full day later in the week – but wanted to give a glimpse of an amazing part of the Festival of Voices.
Deloitte Ignite culminates this weekend with a live-stream of The Science of Opera event featuring festival curator Stephen Fry and Alan Davies. The event will examine the physiological responses to great art and what causes them.]]>
Update: Watch the Covent Garden flashmob that took place as part of Festival of Voices.
Dominic Peckham, chorus member of The Royal Opera, conductor, ambassador of choral music and Artistic Director of youth singing group RM19 has been busy. Dominic leads RM19, a singing group for young people aged 11-25 in Thurrock, where the boundaries are banished when it comes to styles of singing. Genres performed range from classical to hip-hop and Dominic ensures the participants have their say when composing and creating material.
With his conducting hat on and baton in hand, Dominic will lead three choral workshops on 'Va, pensiero' in the ROH's Clore Studio this weekend as part of the Deloitte Ignite Festival of Voices. The workshops are for seasoned singers and first timers, who will be introduced to the joys of community singing. The workshops operate on a first-come first-served basis.
Fancy a go? For a sneaky taster you can look at our 'Va, pensiero' resource, but no preparation is required.
Book free tickets for the Deloitte Ignite Festival of Voices on 22 September, and find out about other events during Deloitte Ignite.
Find out more about the RM19 singing group]]>
The Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season 2013/14 opens tonight with a broadcast of Puccini's classic Turandot.
Hot on the heels of the success of the 2012/13 Season, which attracted audiences of up to 40,000, the Live Cinema Season 2013/14 has expanded to more than 1,000 cinemas across 40 countries, and features an unprecedented five Royal Opera and five Royal Ballet productions.
'In the cinema you feel like you have the best seat in the house,' said Director of Music Antonio Pappano ahead of the live screening of Turandot. 'The cinema experience brings you closer: you see the sweat and expression on the faces of some of the finest singers and dancers on stage. I am very much looking forward to this evening, along with the other 9,999 sites sharing in this wonderful experience.'
Carlos Acosta, Thiago Soares, Marianela Nuñez and Bryan Hymel at the ROH Cinema Season 2013/14 launch © ROH
Following tonight's screening of Turandot, Carlos Acosta's hotly anticipated new production of Don Quixote (in which Carlos and Marianela Nuñez dance the lead roles) will be screened live on 16 October. This is followed on 4 November by Stefan Herheim's new production of Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes, featuring a stellar cast that includes Bryan Hymel, Marina Poplavskaya, Erwin Schrott and Michael Volle.
Bryan Hymel will sing the role of Henri for the live cinema relay of Les Vêpres siciliennes. 'When performing in a live cinema relay, it is forever in your mind that it's not just the people in the auditorium you are performing for, but some twenty to thirty thousand people across the globe,' he says. 'The energy of it being live is just a great new experience as you have to be so mindful of the details - the eyes and face. In the cinema, you honestly have the best seat in the house.'
Other productions to be screened live include Christmas favourite The Nutcracker, Stephen Langridge's new production of Parsifal, Peter Wright's Giselle and Kasper Holten's new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni.
Since 2009, when the Royal Opera House broadcast in just 120 sites in 12 countries, ROH Live Cinema has expanded rapidly.
'We've been on a tremendous journey since the Live Cinema Season launched,' continues Antonio Pappano. 'Last season, over 32,000 people watched The Nutcracker: it was the second highest grossing film that night - nestled between The Hobbit and Skyfall'.
Similarly, 35,000 attended the live screening of Nabucco in April 2013, while some 40,000 watched the screenings of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
View the full list of productions for the 2013/14 Season and find a cinema near you.
Join us to delve into the lives and music of two titans of opera, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, at Deloitte Ignite this weekend (15 and 16 September). There are many ways to join us; whether you come to the ROH in person or watch from another country.
The weekend kicks off with a live broadcast of BBC Radio 3's Music Matters, in which presenter Tom Service will chair a discussion about each composer's impact on art in the 19th century. Panellists include festival curator Stephen Fry, renowned bass Robert Lloyd, Director of Opera Kasper Holten and director Graham Vick. The discussion, broadcast from the ROH's Clore Studio at 12.15pm on Saturday, is now sold out but you can listen live via BBC Radio 3.
Stephen Fry will also lead a special In Conversation event on Saturday afternoon at 5pm. Stephen and Associate Director of Opera John Fulljames will explore their own personal responses to Verdi and Wagner in a discussion that promises to offer lively and original reflections. Tickets are still available. Find out more about the event.
On Sunday at 6pm Stephen will also chair the Intelligence² 200th Birthday Debate: Verdi vs Wagner, which pits the deeply humane, Italian allure of Verdi against the Teutonic cerebral genius of Wagner. The debate, in which Norman Lebrecht and Philip Hensher each champion one of the composers, will feature musical extracts performed by Southbank Sinfonia with conductor Paul Wynne-Griffiths and some very special guests. Tickets are sold out, but you can join us online on the ROH website to watch the event live. Find out more about Verdi vs Wagner.
Deloitte Ignite 2013, which is curated by Stephen Fry and celebrates the bicentenary of Verdi and Wagner, runs throughout September and includes a range of free events. Forthcoming events include The Festival of Voices, which features free choral workshops and performances, and a ticketed performance by Jazz legend Julian Joseph. Find out more about The Festival of Voices and how you can get involved. Although the event is free booking is recommended.
Previous events include a day of free pop-up performances inspired by Verdi and Wagner that took place in the Paul Hamlyn Hall last week. Find out more about the performances.]]>
This Saturday, American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will perform at the Last Night of the BBC Proms. Joyce will perform arias by Handel, Rossini and Massenet in the first half, followed by popular songs including 'Danny Boy' and 'Over the Rainbow'. She will also be adding her own flair to the iconic festival-closing anthem 'Rule, Britannia!'.
Joyce is a regular at the Royal Opera House, most recently performing the role of Elena in The Royal Opera's La donna del lago and will sing 'Tanti affetti in tal momento!' from Rossini's opera in Saturday's concert. Watch Joyce discussing the complex character of Elena:
Joyce recently hosted a masterclass for students from the National Opera Studio in the Linbury Studio Theatre, sharing her knowledge of how to tackle some of Rossini's finest arias. Watch Joyce's masterclass on YouTube.
Joyce also took part in a Twitter Q&A earlier this year where she shared her views on opera in cinema, the challenges of getting opera to a wider audience, and how she prepares for a new role. She even revealed her dream 'pants' role!
The second half of the Last Night of the Proms will also feature the rousing 'Va pensiero' chorus from Verdi's Nabucco. An installation featuring recordings of the iconic chorus from around the world feature as part of the Deloitte Ignite festival. Watch the Royal Opera Chorus rehearsing the piece.
The Last Night of the Proms will be broadcast live on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Radio 3. After the performance it will be available on BBC iPlayer.]]>
'Nessun dorma' must have a claim to be the most famous opera aria ever – thanks to a certain World Cup and the Three Tenors. No doubt some of the millions encountered Turandot through 'Nessun dorma' then listened to more music from the opera. And there are other wonderfully smooth and tuneful solos in the opera, such as Liù's 'Signore ascolta'. However, it is just as much an opera of big crowds. They can have their lyrical moments too, and sometimes in the most unexpected places.
In Act I there is a beautiful number for the people of Peking, 'Perché tarde la luna'. The sound sweeps the audience away into an exotic world suffused with a romantic musical glow. First the women and then the men sing a repeated note as the violins climb slowly higher and higher in long, sustained notes. Gradually short phrases emerge that float around, rising and falling, and then sustained. The volume pulses in waves, from soft to loud, then dying again, and between each little set of phrases there is a pause, as though the men and women are waiting for something to happen. The orchestra decorates this sumptuous vocal quality with a range of rising and falling phrases of their own: sliding strings, wafting woodwind, little punctuating points of percussion. The combination is strange, hypnotic and downright magical.
But there's something darker lurking beneath. Eventually the musical elements coalesce into a single, loud repeated statement chanted by all the voices at the climax of the chorus. What the people of Peking are chanting at the end is 'Pu-Tin-Pao', the name of the executioner. (He is described in the stage directions as 'enormous, gigantic, tragic… carrying his immense sword on his shoulder'). The crowd sing their suspenseful chorus as they keenly wait for the rising of the moon. When the moon rises it is time for the executioner to do his work, for another head to roll. The beautiful vision of the natural world in their words is related to a severed head, a lover of the dead. We can find the same verbal and musical imagery in Richard Strauss's Salome – with another executioner and another severed head. Opera can be a bloody business!
This Turandot crowd are in thrall to an erotically charged bloodlust. What throws the chorus into even starker relief is what immediately follows. We hear the angelic voices of boy trebles singing a little processional tune that represents the beautiful and vengeful Princess Turandot – a genuine Chinese melody to suit the ancient Chinese setting of the opera. Temple gongs are heard lightly striking under their voices, and there is the steady intoning quality of a formal procession. It is mesmerizing and seductive and fades to nothing. They are accompanying the young Prince of Persia who has failed to answer correctly the three riddles posed by the Princess. The penalty for failure is death – so he is about to be beheaded by Pu-Tin-Pao. Gorgeous music, violent passions. It's exactly the sort of shiver-down-the spine moment that opera does so well.
Turandot runs from 9 September 2013 – 10 March 2014, and will be screened live in cinemas on 17 September.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
Earlier this summer a three-day celebration of choral music in all its forms took place in Thurrock. The second FUSED Thurrock Music Festival raised the roof in the unusual (and impressive) setting of the Tilbury Cruise Terminal and featured two full days of workshops as well as performances.
April Smith, a member of the Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus attended a workshop about conducting: 'I came away with a much greater respect and understanding of how difficult a task conducting is, as well as material to work on myself.'
Other workshops included vocal techniques for male and female voices; introductions to opera and gospel singing; vocal leadership; and an inspirational beat-boxing demonstration from MC Zani.
Although the festival has passed for this year there are many ways to get involved in choral singing in Thurrock. The Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus, who were one of the groups taking part in FUSED, meet weekly at High House Production Park and are open to new members. They will perform at the Deloitte Ignite Festival of Voices at the Royal Opera House on 22 September, as will the RM19 Youth Singing Group, also based in Thurrock, and led by Dominic Peckham. Throughout the day there will be free workshops and opportunities to sing, both for beginners and experienced singers. Booking is now open for free tickets.
The Royal Opera House Learning and Participation department works closely with the community in Thurrock to encourage involvement in music and dance. Find out more about activities in Thurrock. This year's Deloitte Ignite runs from 6 to 29 September. Find out more about Deloitte Ignite.]]>
Deloitte Ignite 2013, entitled Verdi/Wagner and curated by opera aficionado Stephen Fry kicks off on 6 September.
The festival, which will be spread over four weeks, is described by Fry as 'a momentous celebration of two great titans of world music, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi'.
Events include Inside Wagner's Head, a one-man show, by actor, writer and director Simon Callow commissioned specially for the festival; live radio broadcasts, workshops, and pop-up performances inspired by Verdi and Wagner; and an investigation into the physiological effects of opera with both Fry and Alan Davies. Many events in Deloitte Ignite are free including a day of singers and choral groups coming together for a Festival of Voices.
The music of Wagner will be brought to life with an installation designed to show just what goes into staging Die Walküre, while composer-in-residence Elspeth Brooks will use recordings from around the world of Verdi's Va Pensiero to create a unique sound installation in the Crush Room.
Find out more and reserve tickets for Deloitte Ignite 2013, or sign up to be first to know when more information is released.]]>
Award-winning composer Harrison Birtwistle's The Moth Requiem had its UK premiere today (12 August) at the BBC Proms.
The work, scored for women's voices, alto flute and three harps is described as 'a dream-like incantation of the names of the dustier cousins of the sun-loving butterfly'. The text of Birtwistle's piece is a poem by Robin Blaser, who previously worked with the composer on his opera The Last Supper. Blaser was inspired by the eerie nighttime sounds of a moth caught under the lid of a piano in his home; the insect touching the strings in its efforts to escape. The Moth Requiem was performed alongside works by Gustav Holst.
Listen to Moth Requiem via BBC iPlayer
In the 2012/13 Season, Birtwistle's acclaimed opera The Minotaur returned to Covent Garden, with John Tomlinson returning to the title role. Read our Opera Essentials guide to The Minotaur.
Listen to Birtwistle speaking at an ROH Insights session about why he chooses to score for a diverse range of instrumentation, and the concepts behind The Minotaur:
Watch The Minotaur's Sitzprobe rehearsal, including a closer look at the workings of the orchestra which boasts an 'armada of percussion':
Let us know what you think of Birtwistle's work, and whether you are captivated (or not) by his unique soundworld.
The Minotaur is available on DVD from the ROH Shop.]]>
On Sunday 15 September Stephen Fry chaired the Intelligence² 200th Birthday Debate: Verdi vs Wagner at the Royal Opera House. You can now watch a full version of the debate on demand. Read a selection of audience tweets from the debate and add your own thoughts.
John Tomlinson performing at the Verdi vs Wagner debate as part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite © Intelligence Squared
The Southbank Sinfonia at the Verdi vs Wagner debate as part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite © Intelligence Squared
Stephen Fry at the Verdi vs Wagner debate as part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite © Intelligence Squared
Conductor Paul Wynne-Griffiths at the Verdi vs Wagner debate as part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite © Intelligence Squared
Dušica Bijelic performing at the Verdi vs Wagner debate as part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite © Intelligence Squared
Tristan und Isolde score, The Verdi vs Wagner debate as part of Stephen Fry's Deloitte Ignite © Intelligence Squared
From the passionate romance of La traviata to the vast mythical world of the Ring cycle, Guiseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner are undoubtedly two of the greatest opera composers of the 19th century. Although equal in stature, their work demonstrates very different perspectives on art and culture. Verdi's music includes some of opera's most popular melodies and is felt by some to encompass both high and low culture, while Wagner's epic compositions are considered by advocates to mark the peak of technical and intellectual genius.
Award-winning writers and cultural commentators Norman Lebrecht and Philip Hensher each championed one of the composers, illustrating their points with musical extracts performed by Southbank Sinfonia with conductor Paul Wynne-Griffiths.
The debate forms part of Deloitte Ignite 2013, Verdi/Wagner. Curated by Stephen Fry, the festival explores the music of Verdi and Wagner in innovative and creative ways. Other events include Inside Wagner's Head, a one-man show by Simon Callow; a new musical piece based upon the legend of Tristan und Isolde by Julian Joseph; and the chance to take part in a day of workshops celebrating choral music. Find out full details of the programme.]]>
Thank you for having #anthonyandthejohnsons it perhaps was the best performance I've ever experienced. #totesamaz
— Tom Sykes (@tomcatsykes) July 26, 2013
Powerful, ethereal and simply stunning #Swanlights Antony and the Johnsons @RoyalOperaHouse with incredible @BrittenSinfonia
— Rachel Atkinson (@knittingtastic) July 25, 2013
Antony and the Johsons (plus full Orchestra) singing Beyonce's 'Crazy in Love' = BEYOND FABULOUS #swanlights @RoyalOperaHouse
— Flora Fyles (@FloraFyles) July 25, 2013
Quite liked Antony and the Johnsons' #Swanlights at @RoyalOperaHouse tonight, have some reservations but overall I thought it worked
— S F Palermo (@Larsenico) July 25, 2013
Thank you Antony Hegarty and @BrittenSinfonia for an absolutely mesmerising night. #Swanlights
— Jen Brister (@JenBrister) July 25, 2013
Transported out of the stratosphere and back by the exquisitely ethereal voice of Antony and the Johnsons #swanlights
— Paul Smith (@Smithyshere) July 25, 2013
Absolutely mesmerised by Antony & @BrittenSinfonia tonight @RoyalOperaHouse. Break my heart! Stunning. #Swanlights
— Kat Lister (@Madame_George) July 25, 2013
Well. #Swanlights at the @RoyalOperaHouse with Antony Hegarty & @BrittenSinfonia was mind-blowing... I could live inside his voice.
— Marianne Taylor (@mnoo) July 25, 2013
Love, Love, LOVE Antony's #Swanlights. One of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard.
— Jen Brister (@JenBrister) July 25, 2013
What did you think of Swanlights?
Swanlights will be staged on 26 July. A small number of tickets are available via phone on +44(0)20 7304 4000]]>
Rodula Gaitano's production of Haydn's little-known L'isola disabitata (The Uninhabited Island) will be broadcast on ABC Classic FM in Australia on Sunday 21 July at 7pm (10am GMT+ 1). You can also listen online in the UK.
The performance features three former Jette Parker Young Artists, sopranos Madeleine Pierard and Anna Devin, and baritone Changhan Lim, performing with tenor Ed Lyon and conductor Oliver Gooch. The production was nominated for a Helpmann Award (the winner will be announced on 29 July).
The production, which received rapturous acclaim on its premiere in the Linbury Studio Theatre as part of Meet the Young Artists Week in 2010, was recorded in April as part of the inaugural Hobart Baroque Festival.
View images of the Jette Parker Young Artists in rehearsal:
The festival, directed by Leo Schofield, celebrated the music of the 17th and 18th centuries with nine days of performance by international and local musicians.
Read soprano Madeleine Pierard's preview of the festival.
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is supported by the Oak Foundation. Find out more about the programme in our News & Features section.]]>
What did you think of the experience of seeing Tosca on BP Big Screens?
This year Mayerling and La rondine were also screened live as part of BP Big Screens. Tosca was the final BP Big Screen of 2013 - thanks to all those that attended.
The production is generously sponsored by Xstrata and generously supported by Roland and Sophie Rudd and the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
Tosca will return to the Main Stage in 2014.]]>
On 25 and 26 July acclaimed visual artist and musician Antony Hegarty will bring the acclaimed Swanlights to the Covent Garden Main Stage.
A unique performance piece by Antony and The Johnsons, Swanlights was originally commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and subsequently presented at Radio City Music Hall and the 2012 Melbourne Festival.
The piece, which is accompanied by Britten Sinfonia, includes songs from all four of Antony and The Johnsons's albums as well as layered screen projections and rotating laser cones, providing a showcase for Antony's unique and enchanting voice.
Read a review of Swanlights the album.
'Singers make a noise that, in a pedestrian circumstance, would be considered totally inappropriate; they are expressing a fever of emotion that you wouldn't usually do in public,' says Antony. 'It is also an act of empowerment and affirmation of your own set of values.'
Watch a discussion with Antony Hegarty and MoMA PS1 Director Klaus Biesenbach.
A meditation on light, nature and femininity, the performance is produced in collaboration light artist Chris Levine, lighting designer Paul Normandale, set designer Carl Robertshaw and lighting director Emma Westerberg.
Swanlights will be performed on 25 and 26 July. Tickets are still available.]]>
La rondine is sponsored by Coutts. Generous philanthropic support was given by Mr and Mrs Christopher W.T. Johnston and The American Friends of Covent Garden. BP Big Screens is supported by Royal Opera House Partner BP.
Our next BP Big Screens relay will be The Royal Opera's Tosca on 18 July.]]>
Britten's five Canticles will be performed together in a new production that opens tonight (Wednesday 10 July), marking 100 years since the composer's birth.
The production, created by director Neil Bartlett and lighting designer Paule Constable, features tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake, both renowned Britten interpreters. Performances will also include a dance element.
Watch Ian and Julius in rehearsal, discussing what makes The Canticles special and the challenges that lie in performing them:
The Canticles, written over a thirty-year period from 1947 and 1974, were created in parallel with some of Britten's most iconic operas, including Billy Budd and Turn of the Screw. Performed together, they present a powerful map of Britten's life and his musical style. Find out more about each of The Canticles.
Britten wrote the pieces for his partner and muse Peter Pears, creating lines specifically for Pear's voice.
Listen to an extract of Canticle I:
'There's a lot of struggle you can hear in the music, but in a way it's looking forward to what their [Britten and Pears's] relationship became later on,' says Ian about Canticle I, 'but at the very end, there is this incredible marriage of minds.'
The production premiered at the Brighton Festival in May earlier this year. Read a review.
You can find out more about Britten's life on BBC Radio 3, where he was featured on Composer of the Week:
Britten's Canticles run in the Linbury Studio Theatre from 10 – 12 July 2013. All dates are sold out, though returns may become available.]]>
The Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Performance takes place this Sunday (30 June). The annual performance, entitled From Studio to Stage and directed by Jette Parker Young Artist Pedro Ribeiro, features a selection of staged opera scenes from across the current Season.
Bryan Hymel as Robert and Pablo Bemsch as Chevalier / Herald in Robert le diable © ROH / Bill Cooper 2012
Justina Gringyte as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni in the JPYA Summer Showcase © ROH / Richard H Smith 2012
Based on roles the singers have covered in Die Zauberflöte, L'elisir d'amore, Eugene Onegin and La rondine; the performance provides a platform for the Young Artists to show their talent.
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is designed to support the artistic development of talented singers at the beginning of their career, employing Young Artists as salaried members of The Royal Opera over a two-year period, during which time they are immersed in the life of the Royal Opera House.
Watch Antonio Pappano working with Jette Parker Young Artists Jihoon Kim and Michele Gamba:
The Young Artists participate in a specially-tailored programme, which includes extensive daily coaching in languages, stagecraft and vocal techniques, alongside preparing cover roles and performing smaller roles on the main stage.
Watch Language Coach Alexander Naoumenko working with Dušica Bijelić on her Russian for Kasper Holten's production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin:
As the 2012/13 Season draws to a close, six Young Artists will leave the Programme to embark on their future careers: soprano Susana Gaspar, who recently competed in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2013, mezzo-sopranos Justina Gringyte and Hanna Hipp, tenor Pablo Bemsch, bass Jihoon Kim and stage director Pedro Ribeiro all joined the Programme in 2011.
Jihoon Kim will join The Royal Opera as a Jette Parker Principal next season, completing a one-year contract performing roles with The Royal Opera while retaining access to the coaching facilities of the Programme. Five new Young Artists will also join the Programme. Find out more about the new intake and about former Jette Parker Young Artists.
The Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Performance, From Studio to Stage, takes place on 30 June at 3pm. Tickets are still available.
The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme is generously supported by Oak Foundation.
Former Jette Parker Young Artist Pumeza Matshikiza has signed with Decca, marking the culmination of an inspiring journey from the townships of South Africa to a global record deal.
Pumeza first encountered opera when channel-surfing on the radio. She subsequently auditioned at the South African College of Music, following which composer Kevin Volans bought her a plane ticket to London, where she was offered a full scholarship at the Royal College of Music. She was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme from 2007 to 2009.
Her debut album will follow her musical journey from the townships of her childhood to the operatic stage, featuring traditional African songs in her native Xhosa language and tracks accompanied by The African Children's Choir as well as popular arias by Mozart and Puccini.
'I feel privileged to be able to chart my incredible journey through the very personal repertoire choices on this album,' she says, ' it features songs and arias that prove music unites people across the world and brings cultures together.'
As a Jette Parker Young Artist, Pumeza performed in Main Stage productions including Wagner's Parsifal, Richard Strauss's Salome, Birtwistle's The Minotaur and Verdi's Don Carlo. She went on to sign a three year contract with Oper Stuttgart in 2011, where her roles include Ännchen in Der Freischütz, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni.
'Pumeza's voice has a haunting beauty that goes straight to the heart; you rarely encounter such distinctive quality,' says Paul Moseley, Managing Director of Decca Classics. 'Her story has inspired us and we believe she will soon grace the great opera houses of the world.']]>
Gloriana runs from 20 June to 6 July. Tickets are available now.
It will also be screened live in cinemas on 24 June, marking the close of the ROH live Cinema Season 2012/13. It will also be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 at 6.45pm on 29 June.
This production has been made possible thanks to the generous philanthropic support of the Britten-Pears Foundation, the Boltini Trust and Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson.]]>
The Royal Opera has commissioned a new full-length opera from composer George Benjamin and playwright Martin Crimp, whose most recent collaboration Written on Skin premiered to acclaim earlier this Season.
The new as-yet-untitled opera, which is expected to be done in partnership with several other opera companies, will have its world premiere at Covent Garden in 2018.
'We are delighted that – following the incredible success of Written on Skin, which seems to be conquering the world – George Benjamin and Martin Crimp have agreed to write a brand new full-scale opera for the main stage at Covent Garden,' said Kasper Holten, Director of Opera. 'It is hard to imagine a better match between a composer and a writer.'
Written on Skin, a co-production with five different opera houses co-commissioned by The Royal Opera, received a standing ovation on its premiere at the 2012 Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. Powerful, impassioned and fiercely dramatic, it was a sell-out success when it opened on the main stage in Covent Garden earlier this season, and has been described by yhe Guardian as a landmark in British opera. Listen to the cast and creative team speaking about Written on Skin.
Christopher Purves as Protector, Bejun Mehta as Boy and Barbara Hannigan as Agnès in Written on Skin © 2012 ROH/Stephen Cummiskey
Christopher Purves as Protector and Barbara Hannigan as Agnès in Written on Skin © 2012 ROH/Stephen Cummiskey
Barbara Hannigan as Agnès and Christopher Purves as the Protector in Written on Skin © 2012 ROH/Stephen Cummiskey
Allan Clayton as John, Bejun Mehta as Boy and Victoria Simmonds as Marie in Written on Skin © 2012 ROH/Stephen Cummiskey
As part of the ROH partnership with the BBC, Written on Skin will be broadcast by BBC Radio 3's Opera on 3 on Saturday 22 June at 6pm, and relayed on television by BBC Four on Friday 28 June at 7:30pm. The CD recording is also available to buy online, and the production has been recorded for release on DVD in due course. It will be revived by The Royal Opera in 2017.
Earlier this season, Kasper and Music Director Antonio Pappano announced their plans to focus on new commissions over the coming years.
Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Ramin Gray, will have its UK stage premiere in the Linbury Studio Theatre today (Friday 14 June), while next season will feature new work by Australian composer Ben Frost (The Wasp Factory) and Julian Philips (How the Whale Became).
'Our efforts are being focused on working with the composers who really excite us and who we feel have a real flair and passion for opera,' said Pappano.
Looking ahead, other future plans include new work by American composer Philip Glass and a new opera for children by Anna Nicole composer Mark Anthony-Turnage. Find out more about The Royal Opera and new work relationships.]]>
The Royal Opera's La donna del lago will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 6pm on Saturday 15 June.
Based on Sir Walter's Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake, Rossini's La donna del lago is a passionate love story set in the turbulence of the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century.
The opera, which had its premiere in 1819, is considered to be one of Rossini's most lyrical works. John Fulljames's production, which starred star mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and renowned tenor Juan Diego Florez, was said by critics to 'contain some of the most spectacular singing to be heard at Covent Garden'.
Update: Listen now via BBC iPlayer:
Joyce DiDonato as Elena and Juan Diego Flórez as Uberto in La donna del lago © ROH / Bill Cooper 2013
Daniela Barcellona as Malcom and Joyce DiDonato as Elena in La donna del lago © ROH / Bill Cooper 2013
A story of nationhood
The story follows Highland beauty Elena, who, amid the turmoil of Scottish independence, is caught between her love for warrior Malcolm and her duty to marry Highland chief Rodrigo.
John Fulljames's production, set in both 16th and 19th-century Scotland, explores themes of national identity and myth-making. Read more about John Fulljames's interpretation of Sir Walter Scott.
The staging of La donna del lago coincided with a season of programmes about Sir Walter Scott on BBC Radio 4, including a documentary entitled 'The Man who made Scotland' presented by James Naughtie, currently available on BBC iPlayer.
Watch John Fulljames and members of the cast introduce the characters of the opera:
Musical highlights
Of the many musical highlights, one is Elena's opening aria 'O mattutini albori!', among Rossini's most beautiful melodies. Find out more about the piece as a whole in our Opera Essentials article.
Review the show
Read audience reactions to the opening night and the live cinema relay, and add your own review.
The production is sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation and the Friends of Covent Garden with generous philanthropic support from Celia Blakey, Hélène and Jean Peters, Judith Portrait and Susan and John Singer. The Production Director is generously supported by Hamish and Sophie Forsyth.]]>
In July, Covent Garden audiences will be treated to rare staged performances of Benjamin Britten's Canticles, marking one hundred years since the composer's birth.
The five Canticles span almost thirty years. Performed together they provide a compelling map of Britten's composing life, and were created in the wake of some of his most famous operas including Billy Budd and The Turn of the Screw. A cast of leading musicians will gather to perform the pieces, including renowned Britten interpreters tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake.
'The Canticles are a funny mixture of the religious and the secular,' says Ian. 'Britten wrote the first Canticle in the late 1940s and it's a setting of a metaphysical poem, a religious text, but at the same time it's also a love song to Peter Pears.'
'There's no question that Pears's voice absolutely shapes the music, and the lines are constructed to suit his voice. It's this mixture of the robust middle voice and the ability to be ethereal at the top, which I think was very special about Pears's approach to singing.'
We caught up with Ian and Julius in rehearsals. After an intimate run-through of Canticles I and III, Ian told us about what makes the Canticles special, how they relate to Britten's life and work, and what challenges lie in performing them.
Find out more about the origins of each of the Canticles
Britten's Canticles run in the Linbury Studio Theatre from 10 to 12 July 2013. Some tickets are available.
Discover the host of events taking place to mark Britten 100.]]>
'The music – it's like being attacked by knives.' But in a good way: Gerald Barry's exuberant, ebullient, brilliantly fearsomely monstrous music sounds like nothing else. If, as an ENO staff member put it during rehearsals for Barry's third opera, it can be a little like being chased by a serial killer, then at least it's a serial killer festooned in jester's finery, bells all a-jangling. Barry's music is grotesque, poignant and beautiful all at once: there has possibly never been a composer better suited to opera-ing Wilde's masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest.
Barry was born in Clarecastle, County Clare, in 1952 and in the late 1970s took up scholarships with Schrat, Stockhausen, Cerha and Kagel (who noted his genius for getting scholarships). Early works have a clear Barry stamp: the disparate instruments in '____' spiral through an almost-unfamiliar scale selected from a chart showing the locations of John Jenkins's manuscripts. Ø, scored for two pianos playing the same part at various octaves, introduces Barry's practice of adaptation through the unholy elevation of those non-harmonic passing notes that give melodies their particular thumbprint (here the unsuspecting victim is Irish folksong Bonny Kate). Both works are distinguished by an air of meaningful nonsensicality.
Barry returned to Ireland, scholarships exhausted, in 1981, and that year began his first opera, The Intelligence Park. It would take the best part of a decade to complete, during which time Barry's interest in Baroque music qualities snowballed. In Dublin, 1753, composer Robert Paradies is struggling with his own opera. He falls in love with his rich fiancée Jerusha's singing teacher, the castrato Serafino; and when Serafino elopes with Jerusha all hell breaks loose. So far, so operatic: but the music tightens the screws. Inspired by the 'bizarre artificiality' of his friend Vincent Dean's libretto Barry's absurdist, beautiful work is largely based on abominated Bach chorales suspended through his now-signature acrobatic vocal lines.
Baroque inspiration continued in Barry's second opera, The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit, commissioned by Channel 4 and updated from Handel's oratorio The Triumph of Time and Truth by librettist Meredith Oakes. The fiendish vocal lines of the cast of five male singers writhe between sweet lyricism and patter that, in Barry's words, 'should have the impact of a bullet'. Barry's next opera was for a cast of six women (of whom one is mute): The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, which opened ENO's 2005/6 season. Here Barry took a more recent source, setting word for word Fassbinder's 1970 play (and later film). Barry's fourth stage work, La Plus Forte (The Stronger), is a 20-minute miniature written for Barbara Hannigan. As she put it: 'Breathtaking! Brilliant! Horrendously difficult!'
Barry's latest is The Importance of Being Earnest, receiving its UK stage premiere in the Linbury Studio Theatre in June. Algy's insane Auld Lang Syne opens the opera and stomps throughout it; Cecily and Gwendolyn's filthy Sprechstimme argument is accompanied by the smashing of 40 plates ('I asked myself what would be an expression of their anger and I suddenly thought of breaking things'); a basso profondo Lady Bracknell spits out Schiller when she gets excited; and the machine-gun-paced, totally-not-contiguous vocal lines heighten what Barry terms the 'play's kind of hysteria'. It's exhilarating, demented and nightmarishly absurd; and, from Barry, we wouldn't expect anything less.
The Importance of Being Earnest runs in the Linbury Studio Theatre 14–22 June 2013.Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by The John S Cohen Foundation.
As part of our monthly series of recommended recordings from the Royal Opera House Shop, this month we take a look at releases from two great singers and a conductor with strong connections to the Royal Opera House.
Luciano Pavarotti - Pavarotti Sings Verdi (Decca)
With 2013 being Verdi's bicentenary, the recordings keep coming. None however, are going to touch Pavarotti sings Verdi for sheer class, élan and the sheer joy of singing. Decca had raided the vaults for this generous three–disc release, all taken from the great tenor's recordings made over the course of his career. Partnered in duet and ensemble by a host of the great names of 20th-century opera, Pavarotti is featured in extended extracts from 11 operas, and you can start at disc one or dip in and out as you prefer. We tend to forget the real Pavarotti that was there before – and after – the hype. Here he sings with unfailing beauty of tone, musical intelligence and – importantly – an emotional connect that is the preserve of the great singer. At the price of one disc, and with lavish packaging, you needn't think twice.
Buy online from the ROH Shop
Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra - Der Freischütz (LSO Live)
Sir Colin Davis will be sorely missed, but we have a valedictory recording from him to cherish. Taken from concerts at the Barbican with his beloved LSO, his recording of Weber's Der Freischütz has just appeared. It's a very fine closing document to a great career – the LSO feels and plays this music as well as any orchestra, with a deeply committed and fully romantic approach that is truly lovely to hear. The cast are up to the task and with this great opera hopelessly under represented in the catalogue, this is well worth adding to your collection.
Buy online from the ROH Shop
Ian Bostridge - Britten Songs (EMI)
As Verdi and Wagner are celebrated for their 200 years, so our own Benjamin Britten celebrates his 100. Ian Bostridge, surely the true heir to Peter Pears, takes on a large slice of Britten's song output in his new CD, Britten Songs. Accompanied for the most part by Antonio Pappano, he traverses among other songs the great Michelangelo Sonnets. The voice may have lost a little of its previous youthful ardour, but this is daring and exquisite artistry, with Bostridge and Pappano a meeting of equals searching for a musical truth. For the last six songs – Songs from the Chinese – Bostridge is hauntingly accompanied by the guitar of Xuefei Yang. This takes my vote as recording of the month – don't miss it.
Buy online from the ROH Shop
What recently released recordings would you recommend?
Ian Bostridge sings during performances of Britten's Canticles in the Linbury Studio Theatre from 10 – 12 July 2013. All dates are sold out, though returns may become available.]]>
'Pappano's Essential Ring Cycle', a documentary celebrating the bicentenary of Wagner's birth, will be broadcast on BBC Four on Friday 17 May at 7.30pm.
The programme is presented by The Royal Opera's Music Director Antonio Pappano, who conducted Wagner's Ring Cycle at the start of this Season, and explores Wagner's epic composition and its impact. It features Bryn Terfel, John Tomlinson, Susan Bullock and Sarah Connolly, all of whom performed in Keith Warner's production earlier this Season.
BBC Radio 3 will also broadcast a selection operas from across the 2012/13 season, including Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, starring Simon Keenlyside and Krassimira Stoyanova; George Benjamin's Written on Skin, which received rave reviews on its premiere in March; and a live relay of Benjamin Britten's Gloriana. Performances from previous Royal Opera Seasons will also be broadcast as part of the Verdi and Wagner bicentenary celebrations. See below for full details.
Verdi's Stiffelio, Thursday 30 May, 2pm
Recorded in 2007. Elijah Moshinsky's production starring José Cura and Sondra Radvanovsky, conducted by Mark Elder.
Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, Thursday 23 May, 2pm
Recorded in 2009. Tim Albery's production, starring Bryn Terfel and Anja Kampe, conducted by Marc Albrecht.
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Saturday 1 June, 6pm
Kasper Holten's production starring Simon Keenlyside and Krassimira Stoyanova, conducted by Robert Ticciati.
Verdi's Nabucco, Saturday 8 June, 6pm
Daniele Abbado's production starring Plácido Domingo and Liudmyla Monastyrska, conducted by Nicola Luisotti.
Rossini's La donna del lago, Saturday 15 June, 6pm
John Fulljames's production starring Joyce Di Donato and Juan Diego Flórez, conducted by Michele Mariotti.
George Benjamin's Written on Skin, with a text by Martin Crimp, 22 June, 6pm
Katie Mitchell's production starring Christopher Purves and Barbara Hannigan, conducted by George Benjamin.
Benjamin Britten's Gloriana, LIVE 29 June, 6.45pm
Richard Jones's production starring Susan Bullock and Toby Spence, conducted by Paul Daniels.
Last night, Irish composer Gerald Barry won the RPS Music Award for Large-Scale Composition for his opera The Importance of Being Earnest.
The opera, which includes megaphones, wellington boots and an ostinato for 40 plates, received rave reviews when it was performed in concert at The Barbican last year. The staged production, directed by former Associate Director of the Royal Court Theatre Ramin Gray, opens in the Linbury Studio Theatre on 14 June.
'The forceful originality of this work smashes conventions alongside plates,' commented judges. 'Miraculously, it provides the most well-worn quotes with a freshness and originality'.
The awards, which were set up in 1989 and are judged by a jury of eminent musicians, are the highest accolade for live classical music in the UK.
Britten Sinfonia, who will play for the forthcoming production of The Importance of Being Earnest, won the award for Best Ensemble. They will also accompany Anthony and the Johnsons in their performance of Swanlights at the Royal Opera House in July.
Other winners include Sarah Connolly, who was presented with the Singer Award. Sarah, who performed earlier this season as Fricka in Keith Warner's production of Wagner's The Ring Cycle, was praised for her 'exceptional musicianship and consistency over an increasingly wide range of styles, from the Baroque to Wagner's The Ring.'
This year, the awards, presented in association with BBC Radio 3, celebrate the bi-centenary of the Royal Philharmonic Society.
Coverage of the ceremony, including interview and music, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 19 May at 2pm.]]>
The young musicians of the Southbank Sinfonia recently had the chance to experience what it's like to perform alongside The Royal Opera and Royal Ballet.
Led by Royal Opera House conductors Barry Wordsworth and Paul Wynne Griffiths, the orchestra was coached through some of the best-known works in the opera and ballet repertory.
The Southbank Sinfonia is a leading orchestral academy, based in London, designed to give young musicians a springboard into the profession. Their visit to the Royal Opera House was part of Side by Side, a skills development programme that includes coaching sessions, mock auditions and a variety of performance opportunities. The orchestra is one of the Royal Opera House's partner organizations, alongside the BBC and the National Opera Studio.
'Everything about the ROH is grand,' said French Horn player Letty Stott. 'From the weird and wonderful sets to the view from the pit stretching way up to the balconies and the breadth of the musical repertory.'
The day concluded with a performance that featured members of The Royal Ballet and the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme.
'To perform with live musicians as well as witness the communication between conductor Barry Wordsworth and the dancers was very special,' continued Letty. 'A fusion of the finest singers, dancers and musicians is hard to come by, and I feel privileged to have been given a glimpse. For me, this is what is so unique about the ROH and why it deserves its grand reputation.'
Conductor Paul Wynne Griffiths emphasized the importance of the Side by Side programme in the development of young musicians:
'To be confined to a theatre pit for either opera or ballet is probably new for the players, and we at ROH enjoy introducing them to and guiding them through the experience.'
Forthcoming events at the Royal Opera House featuring the musicians of the Southbank Sinfonia include the Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Award on Tuesday 14 May. Members of the orchestra also regularly take part in our free lunchtime recitals.]]>
The Royal Opera House will present the first London performances of 'Antony and The Johnsons: Swanlights', with the Britten Sinfonia on 25 and 26 July.
The performance piece was originally commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and was presented at Radio City Music Hall in January 2012 to great acclaim. The piece enjoyed further success at the 2012 Melbourne Festival.
A meditation on light, nature and femininity, Swanlights features songs from all four of Antony and The Johnsons's albums to date and is backed by the Britten Sinfonia and orchestral arrangements by Nico Muhly, Rob Moose and Maxim Moston.
The piece features dramatic lighting and special effects with a large 'crystal' centrepiece absorbing the performers, with the show described by lighting designer Paul Normandale as a 'series of reveals'.
Antony says:
'When I find the Swanlights, my eyes cry species, casting green and gold upon the black water.''
Tickets for Antony and The Johnsons: Swanlights are on sale now.]]>
Benjamin Britten's five Canticles, written between 1947 and 1974 and to be staged at the Royal Opera House this July, almost perfectly book-end his post-war career. But what are canticles and how do they relate to the composer's operatic output?
The loosely-defined term 'canticles' originally meant a short prayer-like song, but was probably best known to Britten from the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis texts that feature in the Anglican evening service. His texts span widely across English literature, drawing on a medieval Chester Miracle Plays, Jacobean metaphysical poetry and poems by Edith Sitwell and T.S. Eliot. All but the last have biblical inspiration, but none are specifically liturgical. Are these works prayers, or did 'canticle' have a separate significance for Britten?
The Canticles are a quintet of chamber works for a range of instrumentation, but their one constant is a tenor part. Each was written for Britten's partner and muse Peter Pears. Performed together they present a powerful celebration of the composer's unique musical language.
Canticle I was written in memory of Reverend Dick Sheppard, founder of the Peace Pledge Union (a committed pacifist, Britten had been a member since its formation in 1934). Britten selected 17th-century poet Francis Quarles's 'My Beloved is Mine', an adaptation of the Song of Solomon: in Britten's hands a serenely radiant paean to love. First performed by Pears and Britten, it seems intended as an overt declaration of their relationship, a testament to both their joint artistic creativity and their personal commitment to each other.
Written in the wake of Billy Budd, Canticle II was composed between late 1951 and early 1952 and is a potent miniature opera for alto, tenor and piano created from a 15th-century Chester Miracle Play telling the story of Abraham and Isaac. Written for and dedicated to contralto Kathleen Ferrier (who created the title role in The Rape of Lucretia in 1946), her part is now more commonly sung by a counter-tenor. Britten later drew on Canticle II for his War Requiem, in the setting of Wilfred Owen's bitter retelling of the biblical story.
1954's Canticle III was another operatic pendant, following the premiere of The Turn of the Screw by just a few months. The Canticle is an aching, plangent outpouring of grief, setting Sitwell's The Raids, 1940: Night and Dawn. Its scoring for tenor, horn and piano recalls the sonority of Britten's 1943 Serenade; both were written for the brilliant horn player Dennis Brain. Britten wrote the Canticle for a memorial service for the young pianist Noel Mewton-Wood, who had taken his life the year before.
Seventeen years separated Canticle IV from its predecessor. Britten's setting of Eliot's The Journey of the Magi is written for alto, tenor, baritone and piano, the three male voices characterizing the kings on their wearying journey. Joining Britten and Pears in the premiere were counter-tenor James Bowman and bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk, both regular collaborators with Britten.
Canticle V, written 1974, was Britten's first work after heart surgery the previous year had left his right hand partly paralysed; its scoring for tenor and harp is a poignant reminder that Britten's piano-playing days were over. It was written for the great Welsh harpist Osian Ellis, for whom Britten wrote his 1969 Suite for harp. Britten dedicated this last Canticle to William Plomer, the librettist for Gloriana and the Church Parables, whose death in 1973 had left Britten deeply shaken. He once more turned to Eliot (one of the few poets he continued to read after his surgery), choosing his mysterious early work The Death of St Narcissus.
The impassioned spirituality of each of the Canticles, and that they were all written for Pears, suggests that their significance for Britten, whatever its explicit cause, was deeply personal. From the impassioned devotion of Canticle I to the destructive obsession with beauty of Canticle V, these innately dramatic works seethe with an intensity that belies their simple forces. Neil Bartlett and Paule Constable face a challenge in staging them – but a rewarding one.
Britten's Canticles run in the Linbury Studio Theatre from 10 - 12 July 2013. All dates are sold out, though returns may become available.]]>
As part of our monthly series of recommended recordings from the Royal Opera House Shop, this month we take a look at releases from Antonio Pappano, Julia Lezhneva and Simon Rattle:
Antonio Pappano - Rossini: Petite Messe Solennelle (EMI)
Antonio Pappano's ongoing series of recordings with his Roman forces at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia has given us a double disc of Rossini's late piece Petite Messe Solenelle. Pappano is a masterful Rossinian – the playing is crisp, fierce where needs be, mellow the next moment. The four soloists are perfectly weighted, and the chorus work exemplary. This is a thrilling recording, one to set next to Pappano's previously released Verdi Requiem. My only reservation is that the live takes have resulted in a bit too much reverberation for my taste, but don't let that put you off for a second – this is a major release.
Julia Lezhneva - Alleluia (Decca)
Julia Lezhneva is Russian, but polished her craft under Dennis O'Neill in Cardiff. Her first recording on Decca has just appeared, an exploration of eighteenth century motets by Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart, including one previously unrecorded by Nicola Porpora. This is premium quality singing: Lezhneva's tone is equal throughout, completely technically in control of some fiercely difficult writing, but most importantly she sings without any artifice – her communicative ability shines through every number, and puts this release straight to the top of my list of 'must have' discs this month.
Simon Rattle/Berliner Philarmoniker - The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) (EMI)
In its centenary year, recordings past and present of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring have been tumbling off the production line. The latest comes from EMI, with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, and if you can't decide which Rite is for you, this might be your safest bet. Boasting sumptuously clear and expansive sound, the Berlin Philharmonic plays with astonishing control and detail. It may all be a bit coolly considered for music this shockingly innovative, but it is a mightily impressive reading. Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Apollon musagète fill the CD to a generous 75 minutes.
Read our recommended recordings for March
What recently released recordings would you recommend?]]>
The Royal Opera is much saddened by the death of Sir Colin Davis, Music Director of The Royal Opera from 1971 to 1986, who worked closely with many leading singers, directors and musicians here, during more than fifty years of his association with The Royal Opera House.
Sir Colin studied clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music. His first conducting position was as conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He became Chief Conductor of Sadler's Wells in 1959 and Music Director there in 1961. His first appearances at the Royal Opera House were for The Royal Ballet. He conducted La Valse in 1960 and Le Baiser de la fée in 1960, and several ballets in 1962, including The Rite of Spring.
Dame Monica Mason, former Director of The Royal Ballet, remembers:
'I first met Colin when he conducted the opening performances of The Rite of Spring in 1962. I was the Chosen Maiden and he was the most wonderfully encouraging conductor for the entire cast at that time. Fifty years ago he was a young man of 35, and he went on to make an enormous international career. We had remained friends ever since, and I am very sad to think I won't see him in the Royal Opera House again.'
In 1967, Davis was appointed Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His first performance for The Royal Opera was conducting Le nozze di Figaro in 1965. He went on to conduct Der fliegende Holländer, Don Giovanni and Fidelio with the Company in 1967, and in 1968 conducted The Midsummer Marriage by Tippett, a composer he championed. In 1969 he conducted Peter Grimes for The Royal Opera, and in the same year conducted the first performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens staged in one evening in French for The Royal Opera, recording the piece the same year. More Tippett followed in 1970 with the world premiere of The Knot Garden.
In 1971 he joined The Royal Opera as Music Director. Sir John Tooley, who was General Administrator (later General Director) of the Royal Opera House from 1970 to 1988, has very happy memories of Davis's time here:
'With the death of Sir Colin Davis, we have lost a remarkable musician, and conductor who contributed hugely to all the organizations for which he worked. He arrived as Music Director of The Royal Opera with the reputation of being something of a firebrand. There was little evidence of that, but Colin, knew what he wanted orchestral musicians and singers to give, in terms of a performance which he would have regarded as true to the composer. And this was the case particularly in those early days of Mozart and Berlioz in the performance of whose music he already excelled. Colin was no slouch, and took on a repertory at the Royal Opera House much of which was not familiar to him at the time but which he wanted to explore.
'Colin's early days at Music Director at the Royal Opera House were not easy for him, as they had not been for his predecessor, Sir Georg Solti. There were some doubts that he could deliver and that he could begin to match some of the world's greatest conductors. In all of this, the doubters were wrong and proved to be wrong by Colin as he widened his repertory and excelled in much of what he undertook. One of his biggest challenges was the new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen from 1973 to 1976, in which he collaborated with director Götz Friedrich. Not an easy relationship, but one that nevertheless flourished and resulted in some remarkable performances. As I look back over Colin's life and particularly his 15 years at the Royal Opera House, he seemed to be on a journey through music in which he was constantly re-examining and developing his interpretations. Colin was an immensely humble person, for which he was to be admired, and never allowed himself to become an obstacle between the music and the audience. He was generous in that he allowed us to engage many of the world's great conductors and was in no way disturbed by the success they might have had; in fact, he rejoiced in it.'
During his time as Music Director, Colin Davis conducted a wide repertory. It included all the major Mozart operas, Der Freischütz, Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Der Ring des Nibelungen, Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini and a revival of Les Troyens, Verdi's Nabucco, Il trovatore, Simon Boccanegra, Otello and Falstaff, as well as Carmen, Samson et Dalila, Werther, The Rake's Progress, Pelléas et Mélisande, the UK premiere of the three-act version of Alban Berg's Lulu, Eugene Onegin, Ariadne auf Naxos and Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg and Eine florentinische Tragödie. Many members of the staff of The Royal Opera have warm memories of working with him both during his tenure and after.
Peter Katona, Head of Casting, remembers:
'Sir Colin was Music Director when I joined the Royal Opera in 1983. Over the years that followed we became close. He was a wonderful and warm musician, devoted to the music he loved and free of all pomposity. Once or twice a year I would sit at his kitchen table in Highbury, made welcome by him and his wonderful wife Shamsi, and we would take a tour d'horizon of life in general and of his forthcoming projects, at Covent Garden in particular. With few artists does one have such a direct, human and honest contact. An occasion I will never forget was an orchestra rehearsal of Così fan tutte a few years ago – the singers in front of the curtain, no production to distract, and the music speaking with a richness and depth, an emotion and clarity such as I have very rarely experienced. Mozart himself would have been moved to tears, I am sure. Thank you, Sir Colin. You will long be remembered by those who had the good fortune to work with you as an artist and to know you as a man.'
David Syrus, Head of Music for The Royal Opera, worked closely with Sir Colin on many productions:
'On the day Colin started as Musical Director here I started as a fledgling répétiteur. He was my first and most stimulating professional teacher – singing bel canto in every language, using text as the driving force (in the first Friedrich Ring Götz talked music, Colin text!), discovering the rhetoric in accompanied recitative (not to mention the first two chords of the 'Eroica'!). But most of all he taught humility – towards the pieces and towards colleagues. He was staggeringly erudite, but never flaunted his knowledge, he was very funny, always ready for good exchange of ideas (though if it was about appoggiaturas, you'd run up against a brick wall eventually!). The modesty and humanity of the man irradiated his music. We loved him and we miss him badly.'
Many of the singers who worked with Sir Colin Davis here also have fond memories of him.
Thomas Allen worked with Sir Colin many times at the Royal Opera House, first as Melot in Tristan und Isolde in 1973, then in roles including Pelléas, Wolfram, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and Don Alfonso. Allen remembers Sir Colin's tenure as a very fruitful time:
'He was Music Director of The Royal Opera at the most crucial stage of the Company's history and development, one that happened to coincide with my own arrival in WC2. Led by him, I will always remember the strength of the Company in visits to La Scala, Milan, South Korea and Tokyo and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, key moments in creating and establishing the international standards for which the company is renowned. Colin Davis led The Royal Opera through all of that vital period.'
Heather Harper also had a fruitful collaboration with Colin Davis, singing Ellen Orford and Nadia in The Ice Break for him with The Royal Opera, and other roles elsewhere:
'Colin and I started almost at the same time, just two years from each other; those years were his beginnings and also mine. We worked together quite a lot. I remember singing Vitellia with him at a performance of La clemenza di Tito in London when very few people had heard this opera. Much later when we were both established we worked together on many occasions, notably in Britten's music and also Tippett's. I remember the happy occasion when Elijah Moshinsky's production of Peter Grimes had its premiere in 1975; there was such a good atmosphere and he was so serene. Although Colin could be very emotional. When we went together to La Scala and Claudio Abbado came to London with the La Scala company, Colin showed in Italy much more of the fire and character associated with the Italians than Abbado, who was always cool. He laughed so much when I told him about it. It was he who got me to almost shout the word 'answers' in the recording of Tippett's Third Symphony. He was not only a well read intellectual but also a good motivator and colleague, as well as a sensational musician. He has gone, but those like me who were lucky to have known him and work with him will keep and treasure these memories.'
After he left The Royal Opera in 1986, Sir Colin went on to hold positions with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He was made Principal Guest Conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle in 1990, and Principal Conductor of the LSO in 1995. He became President of the LSO in 2007. He continued to appear regularly
with The Royal Opera, conducting Ariadne auf Naxos and Fidelio in 1987, Don Giovanni in 1988 and Die Zauberflöte, La clemenza di Tito and Der Freischütz in 1989.
The soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow sang Ariadne under Sir Colin in 1989, and remembers him warmly:
'It was with the greatest regret that I heard the very sad news about the great loss of the beloved and much valued Sir Colin Davis. I will never forget the wonderful possibilities that I had to collaborate and make music with him in numerous performances and concerts, at Covent Garden, in Munich and elsewhere. His enormous commitment, always searching for the truth in music, will forever give direction to new generations of musicians. May his memory be full of light. He will always be in our hearts!'
Sir Colin's appearances with The Royal Opera in the 1990s included Turandot, La Damnation de Faust, Manon, Die Entführung aus dem Serail and The Turn of the Screw. From 2001 onwards he largely conducted Mozart with The Royal Opera, though he also conducted Hansel and Gretel in 2008.
Opera director David McVicar worked with Sir Colin when Sir Colin conducted his Royal Opera productions of Die Zauberflöte (2003 and 2011) and Le nozze di Figaro (2006 and 2011) and his new production of La clemenza di Tito (for Aix-en-Provence, 2012):
'When I first started listening to opera and especially listening to Mozart, it was Sir Colin's recordings I first listened to. So when it came to working with Sir Colin on Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro and La clemenza di Tito, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to me. He was completely inspiring to work with, gentle and wise and he didn't give a damn about following fashion in Mozart. He followed his own heart and belief. His way with Mozart was the way I learned Mozart – and the most natural way to work on these operas. Everyone who worked on these productions benefitted from all his wisdom and experience: it was magical and very special.'
Simon Keenlyside, who sang Papageno for Sir Colin with The Royal Opera, has similar memories:
'In an age of ever more marketed, and image conscious musicians... Colin was always clear that first and last, music was 'the Thing', the only distraction worth driving for. His music making was fierce and uncompromising, but away from the podium, he was a mischievous, irreverent and deeply inquisitive man. We will miss him, even if his wonderful recording legacy remains often as a benchmark for excellence.'
Sir Colin Davis's last appearances with The Royal Opera were conducting Die Zauberflöte (2011) and Così fan tutte (2012).
Christopher Maltman sang Papageno in 2011:
'Great conductors don't simply keep orchestra and singers in time, they bind them together with an overarching artistic vision that imbues tempo with meaning and purpose, and mystically facilitate the sometimes convoluted process of lifting music from page to public. Sir Colin was a truly great conductor. Even more remarkably, he was one who managed his Herculean tasks with profound integrity, humility, depth and class. An example for us all. I was fortunate enough to work with him on music ranging from Mozart to MacMillan, including both my Covent Garden debut and The Royal Opera's 2011 incarnation of the eternal Zauberflöte, and, although the sparkling, rejuvenating energy he brought to each, even into his eighties, may have now departed, all of those pieces will for me be haunted forever by his warm, benevolent spirit.'
Sir Colin, thank you for so many years of marvellous music-making with The Royal Opera. You will be fondly remembered and much missed.
If you would like to leave a tribute to Sir Colin Davis, please do so using the comments form below.]]>
<Added 16/04/13: Read our feature on Sir Colin Davis, including tributes from leading singers, directors and musicians>
The Royal Opera House is deeply saddened to hear of the death of Colin Davis, who was Music Director of The Royal Opera (1971–86), Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1995–2006) and President of the LSO from 2007.
Antonio Pappano, current Music Director of The Royal Opera said:
'The loss of Colin Davis for the Royal Opera House is a huge blow. We had future plans with him in place but more importantly, his passing represents an end of an era, where grit, toil, vision and energy were the defining elements of a leading international opera house.The warmth and excitement of his music-making will be terribly missed. He was a giant. A very sad moment for British music.'
President of the LSO and Honorary Conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle, Colin Davis recorded extensively for leading companies, including the LSO Live Label. Recent engagements with The Royal Opera included Così fan tutte (2012), Le nozze di Figaro (2010) and Die Zauberflöte (2011). His many awards included a knighthood (1980), Companion of Honour (2001) and the Queen's Medal for Music (2009).
David McVicar's production of Die Zauberflöte opens tomorrow night (Tuesday 16 April 2013) at the Royal Opera House, and the run will be dedicated to the memory of Sir Colin Davis.]]>
Opera composers rarely see the first performance of a work as the end of a job. Several great composers have been notorious 'revisers'. When Mozart brought Don Giovanni to Vienna a few months after its Prague premiere, he rewrote sections to suit his new cast. Wagner revised Der fliegende Holländer at least three times, and Tannhäuser twice (he was planning further revisions shortly before he died). Strauss completely rewrote Ariadne auf Naxos after its unsuccessful premiere in 1916.
Giuseppe Verdi, whose bicentenary we celebrate this year, often revised his operas after their world premieres. Five of his operas underwent particularly extensive changes: we will look at Macbeth, Stiffelio and La forza del destino in a future article, but here is the background to two operas from this season, Don Carlo and Simon Boccanegra:
Don Carlos/Don Carlo
(World premiere 1867, Paris; revised version 1884, Milan; second revised version, 1886, Modena)
Don Carlos/Don Carlo is the opera that Verdi revised most extensively. He wrote it for the Paris Opéra, as a work to equal the grand operas of Meyerbeer (such as the hugely popular Robert le diable). It featured a dramatic historical subject, spectacular tableaux, grand choruses, an elaborate ballet, a dramatic burning of heretics and starring roles for six principal singers. Even in rehearsals, it became obvious that the opera was too long (a prime concern was audience members missing their last train home - not much has changed!), and several extensive cuts were made.
Verdi had an Italian translation made of the original French Don Carlos libretto in 1866, and various productions of the opera, given in Italian as Don Carlo, took place in Italy 1868–71. During this period Verdi continued to revise the score, making his most dramatic cuts for Milan in 1884. He cut scenes from both Act III and Act V, and disposed of the first act altogether, so that the now four-act opera opened with Elizabeth married to Philip, and Carlos grieving at the tomb of his grandfather. To ensure that Carlos still got an aria, Verdi reworked his 'Io la vidi' ('Je l'ai vue') from the original Act I, turning it from an expression of love to one of nostalgia.
The 'Milan' version of Don Carlo has survived and is still often performed. However, it was not Verdi's last word on the subject. Unhappy at having cut the act that showed Carlos and Elizabeth falling in love, Verdi produced a final, five-act version of the opera for Modena in 1886. This reinstated Act I in a shortened form, but kept most of the other cuts made for Milan.
All three principal versions of Don Carlo are still in the repertory: the original French Don Carlos, the 'Milan' Don Carlo and the 'Modena' Don Carlo. The 'Milan' version was the most popular during the 20th century, but in recent years the 'Modena' version has eclipsed it in popularity. The Royal Opera production, directed by Nicholas Hytner, uses the 'Modena' version of the opera.
Simon Boccanegra
(World premiere, La Fenice, Venice, 1857; world premiere of revised version, La Scala, Milan, 1881)
Simon Boccanegra is the most important example of Verdi revising a work to improve it musically and dramatically. The premiere of the first version of Simon Boccanegra in 1857 was a failure. One critic loyally described the opera as 'one of Maestro Verdi's most beautiful compositions', but it soon fell into neglect.
More than twenty years after the world premiere of Simon Boccanegra, Verdi met the brilliant librettist and composer Arrigo Boito. Verdi had considered revising Simon Boccanegra for years. He decided to test the possibility of working regularly with Boito by recruiting him to help revise the opera for a production at La Scala, Milan. Boito's main task was to substantially rework Act I, which Verdi found undramatic. Boito agreed, writing to Verdi: 'the drama we are working on is lopsided like a table that wobbles… there is much intrigue but not much structure'. He added that the opera 'lacks tragic power as much as it lacks theatricality'.
So Boito and Verdi completely rewrote Act I scene 2 of the opera. The scene was moved from the harbour at Genoa to the Doge's Council Chamber, and now opened with the Doge urging his senators to make peace with Venice. The new scene also included a fight, a large-scale ensemble in which Boccanegra calms the crowd, and a chilling final chorus, in which Boccanegra pronounces a curse on Amelia's abductor. This extensive revision made Boccanegra seem a far more impressive and noble character, and provided a thrilling end to Act I.
Verdi and Boito's other revisions further enhanced Boccanegra's dramatic power. They included a duet in which Fiesco blesses Adorno's engagement to Amelia, revisions to Boccanegra and Amelia's great Act I duet to make both parts more characterful and a chilling recitative for Paolo in Act II as he plans to poison Boccanegra. Verdi also retouched various scenes, adding a greater harmonic and instrumental richness to the music.
The premiere of the revised Boccanegra was a great success. It took some time for the opera to establish itself in the repertory, but the 1881 version is now widely regarded as one of Verdi's most compelling creations. The Royal Opera have staged the 1881 version of Simon Boccanegra to acclaim three times in the last ten years, in two different productions. The opera was last seen here in 2010 in Elijah Moshinsky's production, with Plácido Domingo in the title role (recorded for EMI) and will return here in June 2013.
Don Carlo runs from 4 - 25 May while Simon Boccanegra runs from 27 June - 16 July. Tickets are still available.]]>
A new staging of György Kurtág's song-cycle Kafka Fragments premieres in the Linbury Studio Theatre this week. Performed by soprano Claire Booth and violinist Peter Manning, the song-cycle will be brought to life in an imaginative new staging by video artist Netia Jones. We caught up with Netia and Claire during rehearsals to find out more:
Is Kafka Fragments only for fans of Kafka's work?
Netia: Not at all. One of the reasons why Franz Kafka is one of the great authors is not just the brilliance of his writing and observation, but that the themes that he tackles are timeless. These feeling of confusion, alienation and fear are things that just don't change; they are easy to understand from any point of view or perspective. In our production, we are trying to create something that is timeless.
Claire: The song cycle is so idiosyncratic that it is accessible for those who feel they know nothing about Kurtág and Kafka.
The piece is composed of 40 miniature works that range in length from 12 seconds to four minutes. Does the cycle work as a unified whole?
Netia: It's actually very important to me that it's not a unified whole. Although there is a structure to it, there isn't a narrative. What Kurtág and Kafka offer is an open-ended question – something unfinished that you can explore. There's not a solution there, but a space for the question itself. It's a very beautiful piece of music.
Kafka's characters often show aspects of his own personality, and Kafka Fragments is composed from his diaries and letters. Do you think the song cycle offers insights into the writer himself?
Netia: We're not exploring anything biographical, but rather the essence of Kafka's thinking and his approach to life. Because these fragments are so concentrated and so crystalline, you find themes that are recurrent in Kafka's work.
Netia, you work a lot with visual projections and video. How are you using projected media in this production?
Netia: We are presenting projected translations of the text all the way through. You have to be able to read and understand the actual fragments to grasp their many layers and to know why Kurtág has set them the way he has. The projections also offer moments of illumination. It's not just about casting light in a physical sense, but offering visual guidance to enable us to grasp the meaning better: fleeting moments when something is illuminated before the light goes off.
Kafka's texts are often difficult to translate into English. How do you think they translate to music?
Netia: Kurtág brings Kafka's texts to life in musical form to reveal the real essence of their author. It's not often that you see such a perfect marriage of music and text.
In some ways, the translation of the spirit of Kafka into music is easier than into the English language."
Claire: Kafka Fragments works because it is the meeting of two men who, though seemingly unrelated in every way, have so much in common. Both said that their work is about their own experiences of life and, in particular, both distil what they do to its most concentrated form so that every utterance has an intensity, and layers of meaning. The cycle is a real pinnacle of vocal writing in the modern age and so it's an amazing piece to work on. It demands a lot in regards to performance, but I like a challenge.
Kafka Fragments is performed on 28 and 30 March in the Linbury Studio Theatre. Tickets are still available.
Find out more about Franz Kafka.
A two-day festival of singing, opera and choral events will be held in Tilbury, Essex on 29 and 30 June.
The FUSED Thurrock Choral Festival is our second annual singing event and, this year, it will be spread over two days.
Attendees will be able to take part in workshops including different sessions introducing choral singing, beat-boxing and singing in a gospel choir. Some workshops are available for both children and adults.
There will also be performances from the The Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus, featuring soloists from the Royal Opera House, on Saturday 29 June; and a concert featuring our youth singing group, RM19, on Sunday 30 June.
All of the workshops cost £3 and the concerts are £8 (concessions £6). Refreshments will be available to purchase throughout the day. On Saturday and Sunday evening, during the concerts, food stalls and a bar will be available.
If you've ever wanted to learn a different way to use your voice – or if you're wondering whether or not joining a choir is right for you – come along to find out more. FUSED will be held in London Cruise Terminal, Ferry Road, Tilbury, RM18 7NG.
The FUSED Thurrock Choral Festival is just one of a number of projects in the area. Find out more about our activities in Thurrock.
One of the world's pre-eminent opera singers, an ambassador of American song and something of a cyber-philanthropist, Thomas Hampson is a busy man.
The American baritone regularly performs at the world's leading opera houses and concert halls throughout the USA and Europe. He has recorded more than 150 albums, and actively encourages musical and cultural education through the Hampsong Foundation.
This summer, he will appear at the Royal Opera House as the Doge in Elijah Moshinsky's production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, a role that he performed to critical acclaim last year with Chicago's Lyric Opera. Though received poorly at its premiere in 1857, the opera, which follows the fateful tale of Genoa's first doge, is now considered to be one of Verdi's most compelling works.
If I were standing against a wall before a firing squad being forced to name my favorite opera, Simon Boccanegra would be one of the operas I would think of naming."
'Boccanegra is even more fundamentally a part of my musical and theatrical soul than Macbeth,' said Hampson in a recent online interview.
Hampson has one of the biggest operatic repetories of any singer; ranging from Monteverdi, to major roles in operas by Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, as well as contemporary pieces by composers including Hans Werner Henze and Paul Hindemith. He often takes on new roles, most recently debuting as Iago in Verdi's Otello, and, in 2011, he created the role of Rick Rescorla in the Christopher Theofanidis's Heart of a Soldier, an opera composed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Despite his stellar career in classical music, Hampson had no ambitions to be a singer until he was in his twenties. Though he played the piano as a boy, he admits that, at the time, he would rather have been playing baseball. He studied political science at university, and then was persuaded to start singing by a vocal coach and nun he met in his home town of Spokane, Washington State. He went on to train at Fort Wright College and in California, before making his operatic debut in 1974 in a local production of Hänsel und Gretel.
Hampson is now a revered performer, recently awarded the title of "Met Mastersinger" by the Metropolitan Opera Guild. He last performed at the Royal Opera House as Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata in 2009.
We'll be interviewing Thomas Hampson early in March, before rehearsals begin for Simon Boccanegra. If you have any questions for the singer, let us know via comments on this post or via Twitter, using the hashtag #AskThomasHampson - we'll ask him a selection during our interview.
Simon Boccanegra opens at the Royal Opera House on 27 June and runs until 16 July. Booking opens 13 March for Friends of Covent Garden and General Booking opens 9 April. This production is made possible through the generous support of Mrs Susan A Olde OBE, Alfiya and Timur Kuanyshev, and the Verdi Syndicate.]]>
Song for Marion, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp, can be seen in UK cinemas from today.
Written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams, the film follows Marion (Redgrave), who is terminally ill but loves singing for a local chorus, and her husband, Arthur (Terence Stamp), who grumpily disapproves. When tragedy strikes, Arthur has to revise his ideas about the choir.
Only a handful of the choir members in the film were professional actors. They were picked from a community chorus in Newcastle, where the film was shot.
Watch the trailer of Song for Marion here:
Arthur's skepticism about the choir is mirrored by the gender imbalance in many singing groups around the country. Our community choir, the Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus, had a drive for new male members in January, and the number of men taking part has doubled since then.
ROH Thurrock Community Chorus member Eric Smith tells us:
'I have been singing for 50 years but had never considered myself to be a "serious" singer so it was with some trepidation that I joined the ROH Thurrock Community Chorus in January 2012. I need not have worried. At our collective best, we sound amazing - it's our passion and commitment that allow that to happen. So bring it on for 2013!'
Find out more about our ROH Thurrock Community Chorus here:
The ROH Thurrock Community Chorus will be performing live on 29 and 30 June as part of FUSED Thurrock Choral Festival. During this event, there will be workshops and performances and the chance to find out more about the choir. For information about tickets, contact email@example.com
Education charity Damaris has created a number of resources to encourage people to think about personal, everyday life issues raised in Song for Marion.
Are you a member of a choir? Let us know what the experience has been like for you.]]>
To celebrate International Mother Language Day, we asked those who sing among our Twitter following which languages they find the hardest to perform in.
Storified by Royal Opera House· Thu, Feb 21 2013 07:00:23
If you sing, what language do you find it difficult to sing in?]]>
The competitors for this year's BBC Cardiff Singer of the World have been announced.
The biennial competition has been running since 1983 and sees 20 finalists from around the globe sing for the title of the world's greatest singer. Each year hundreds of young singers enter, aspiring to reach the finals in June. During the competition well over 100 pieces of music are performed including operatic arias, solo arias from sacred works and songs, all with orchestral accompaniment. The prize is awarded by a jury including Kiri Te Kanawa.
Previous winners include Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1989), Anja Harteros (1999) and Bryn Terfel (song prize, 1989).
Jette Parker Young Artist Susana Gaspar is one of this year's finalists, competing for Portugal. In her time with The Royal Opera since 2011, she has appeared in many roles, including as Giannetta in L'elisir d'amore. During the rest of the Season she will sing the role of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte and cover the role of Mimì in La bohème. Read our interview with Susana about her role in L'elisir d'amore and experiences as a Young Artist.
Find out about the other finalists
The competition runs from 16 - 23 June and will be broadcast on the BBC. Season ticket booking is now open, through the BBC's Cardiff Singer of the World website.]]>
If you're 11 to 16 years old and enjoy creating music there's still time to enter this year's Fanfare Competition Fanfare offers young composers the chance to create the music that calls our daily audience of thousands into Royal Opera House performances on the Main Stage.
We're looking for exciting ideas that will really grab attention and stand out from the crowd. All you need to do is record your idea and submit it as an MP3 before Monday 4 March. You can record your proposal any way you like;sing it, play it on an instrument or use music software – anything goes!
If you're after inspiration, watch Music Director of The Royal Opera Antonio Pappano on what makes a good fanfare.
Listen to one of last year's winners, Junaid Rehman, whose original submission was created using music software. We really liked how much drive and force was in his musical idea and knew it had real potential to be developed:
After he was selected as one of the 10 winners, Junaid worked closely with a composer and musicians from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House to develop his initial ideas, working out how he wanted it to sound when played by an orchestra. Professional composer Duncan Chapman then wrote and orchestrated Junaid's ideas into the final fanfare, which is now played over the front of house tannoy to alert audiences to take their seats. Take a listen to the final version here:
If you want the chance to work with a professional composer and have your music heard by thousands, we'd love to hear your initial ideas. Good luck!
It's a familiar cliché: as death approaches, your life flashes before your eyes. If you live in the world of opera, you could be mistaken for thinking this isn't a cliché but a simple matter of fact. In a significant number of operas, including La bohème, the death of a heroine is accompanied by a musical montage of key moments from her life. Consider just a few of these memorable, operatic death scenes:
In the final act of Verdi's La traviata, the dying heroine, Violetta, sings a long and haunting duet ('Parigi, o cara') with Alfredo, the lover with whom she has – only just in time – been reunited. The brass go on to announce her imminent death in funeral-like rhythms, but Violetta finally expires after a few sentences spoken over the sounds of an ethereal solo violin. It is playing the major-key tune of her Act I showstopper 'Ah! fors'è lui' (Ah, perhaps he is the one), the point when she realized she loved Alfredo, Her dying musical memory is a beautiful tune, poignant because the theme recalls the start of her love affair.
Wagner adopted the same approach as Verdi. Isolde dies singing a solo version of her love duet with Tristan in Act II of Tristan und Isolde. He has just died, and she is about to follow him. As with Violetta, it is the return of music from
a great love scene earlier in the piece that generates the emotional charge: past elation meets grim present. If the big event in your life was that one great passion, then maybe it is exactly to that your last conscious thoughts turn. Although revisiting one event is not quite the same as a whole life flashing before one's eyes.
We get much nearer the 'flashing life' cliché at the end of Wagner's Ring cycle with Brünnhilde. As she prepares for death she recalls not just her own life but runs back through the story, motivation and music of all four of the Ring's operas. It is one very big flashback indeed for her as she contemplates what has brought her to the point of sacrificial suicide – it's also the culmination of a theatrical marathon for the audience!
Puccini does something similar in his first major opera success, Manon Lescaut. There are only two characters in Act IV: Manon and her lover Des Grieux. The title of Manon's famous Act IV aria says it all: 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata' (Alone, lost, abandoned). Stuck in a desert outside New Orleans – it's opera, the geography isn't always perfect! – the end is nigh for Manon. The act is full of musical themes from the previous three, which have shown us Manon's life from her meeting as a naive young girl with Des Grieux, through to her time as a Paris courtesan and her deportation to New Orleans for theft and prostitution – taking the besotted Des Grieux with her. In effect, the act compares the innocent girl of the start of the story with the dying figure at the end of an unhappy, unfulfilled life. The use of familiar music literally plays out elements of the story for the audience as Manon's life gradually seeps from her worn-out frame.
For the death of Mimì in La bohème, Puccini takes the idea further. The first and last acts both take place in the same cold, poorly furnished student garret, and Act IV is a montage of earlier melodies, mostly taken from Act I. However, Act I is the bright optimistic, joyous start of the story: the introduction of the lively bohemians, their carefree and colourful life and the beginnings of the romance of Mimì and Rodolfo. The music describes this atmosphere. So in Act IV, these optimistic and melodious sounds seem on first impression out of step with the darkening drama as Mimì succumbs to the final stages of tuberculosis. But Puccini intends to create this tension. The lightness of the sounds throws into relief the darkness of what is fast becoming inevitable, and it is the friction between the two that creates the tension and hence the emotion. Act I and Act IV are two sides of the same coin: one ends with lovers united, the other with lovers parted. It is the flashback of memory and its reminder of a happier past that heightens in Act IV the tragedy of a life dramatically – and operatically – cut short.
Do you have a favourite operatic final moment?
La bohème runs from 16 February - 12 March 2013.]]>
It looks to be an exciting year ahead for singer-songwriter Sasha Siem. The British-Norwegian composer, who will present a song cycle entitled Most of the Boys in the Linbury Studio Theatre in February, has been hailed as a talent to watch during the year ahead by the Guardian, the Times and Time Out New York. This year will also see the release of her debut album recorded with producer David Kahne (The Strokes, Regina Spektor, Lana Del Rey). We caught up with Sasha to find out what inspires her and why she's so excited about her latest work:
What can we expect from Most of the Boys?
It's a collection of 12 songs for one female character. I think of each as being a mini opera. Even though they don't tell a story in a linear way, they all connect up and inhabit the same world; inviting you into the character's inner life and hinting at her story.
On the experimental pop side, I've been influenced by Tom Waits, Björk, Andrew Bird and Joanna Newsom and by Claude Vivier and Salvatore Sciarrino on the contemporary classical side. Although these musicians are diverse, they actually have a lot in common. All of them are working with sound and timbre to make something come alive in ways your ears haven't heard before; to push boundaries of form and create new combinations of sounds.
I'm also working with directors Ted Huffman and Zack Winokur, who are both very charismatic characters with interesting brains. They're really bringing out the theatrical element.
You'll be performing accompanied by a string quartet. What have been the main challenges in writing for an ensemble?
Writing a string quartet is something of a rite of passage for a composer, because it's challenging from a technical point of view and because so much has been written for it already. How do you make it fresh and relevant to our ears today? How do you make it come alive and produce sounds that you'd never expect?
I try to use the quartet differently. There are lots of fun playing techniques, from col legno (using wood of the bow) to playing behind the bridge (for a really high noise); we even have one song where they play a tremolo using a chopstick between the strings!
This song cycle follows on from your debut EP Knots and Do Nots. What do you like about writing song cycles?
With songs, you have a very defined format. As a result, there is a very exciting dynamic between the container and the contained – the content. You can have a very particular type of impact because you have a frame of reference, as does the listener. It allows you to subvert or set up expectation and I find it fun to play with this.
Do you think it's a disadvantage that it's hard to categorize your music?
My music is an organic fusion of the different music that I love and respond to. I don't think that's a disadvantage. The world is so much freer today than it was even five years ago. There's a really sophisticated audience out there, who are discovering, curating and supporting music across previously impermeable generic boundaries.
After being touted as 'one to watch' in 2013, what are your plans for the rest of the year?
We're planning to release these 12 songs as my debut album in May, and will be releasing an EP to coincide with the Royal Opera House dates. I feel it marks a very important departure for me and that a lot of things have come together in this work. It feels like a fresh start and like the truest way that I have to express myself at the moment.
Most of the Boys is generously supported by the PRS for Music Foundation through Women Make Music. Sasha Siem will be performing in the Linbury Studio Theatre on 1 and 2 February 2013. Tickets are still available.]]>
Have you ever wanted to sing with The Royal Opera? This is your chance!
On Monday 7 January, we're broadcasting Royal Opera LIVE and we want you to be part of it. We'd like you to submit a video of yourself singing 'Va Pensiero' – the famous slave chorus from Verdi's Nabucco.
We want as many voices as possible – whoever you are, whatever you sound like, we want to hear you sing and we'll feature the best during Royal Opera LIVE.
Not only that, but British composer Elspeth Brooke has been commissioned by the Royal Opera House to write a piece of music inspired by 'Va Pensiero', one of Verdi's most famous choruses. She will incorporate the best moments into her new work, which will premiere later in 2013.
To enter, watch the video of Rolando Villazón singing 'Va Pensiero', get someone to film you somewhere interesting and sing along. If you don't remember the words, feel free to hum along instead. Then, upload your clip as a video response to our clip on YouTube.
Royal Opera LIVE will be streamed around the world on Monday 7 January via the Royal Opera House website, The Space and the Guardian website.
Royal Opera LIVE is a co-commission between the Royal Opera House, Arts Council England and The Guardian.
The Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus got the chance to sing with the Royal Opera Chorus for two joint concerts this autumn.
The new National Skills Academy in Purfleet saw the first of the two 'Awake in Chorus!' performances, while the second took place in the Paul Hamlyn Hall at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
The ROH Thurrock Community Chorus is open to all Thurrock residents , whatever their experience of singing. It The Chorus meets twice a week, and had been rehearsing for this event throughout 2012. "This concert is the result of all the hard work we've put in - and the fact that we're singing with the Royal Opera Chorus makes it even more special," said choir member, Sylvia Outram.
The two choruses performed songs together and as separate choirs. The repertoire included well-loved operatic numbers by Verdi, Bizet, Rossini, and Sullivan; as well as a specially-commissioned piece by Purfleet-based composer Alexander Campkin. The new commission was performed jointly by the two choruses. Librettist Hazel Gould created the text in collaboration with members of the ROH Thurrock Community Chorus, and the commission was performed jointly by the two choruses.
The ROH Thurrock Community Chorus will be performing in a special Christmas Concert at Thurrock on 8 December. The event is sold out.]]>
Three years ago, I read about the Fanfare Competition in a national newspaper. Budding composers were being encouraged to write orchestral fanfares for the Royal Opera House and the prize was for the winning entries to be recorded by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, under the directorship of Antonio Pappano. Not only that, but the winning fanfares were to be played during the performance intervals over the course of the following Season. I knew that our pupils would be excited by this amazing competition, but I was not fully prepared for their energy and their highly creative musical compositions.
We are a relatively small state middle school, with just under 250 pupils. I encouraged pupils to work in pairs, and the teaching staff also provided workshops in lunchtimes.
Over the past three years, we've submitted well over a hundred entries, with a few winners along the way. What followed for them was something that few young composers will have ever experienced, with our pupils accorded red carpet treatment from the moment they were chosen. Fantastically, winning doesn't seem to be the sole motivation for pupils entering. Last year we didn't manage a winning entry but this hasn't put the current students off - I have already had a lot asking me when we are going to start writing them again. A key aspect of education is to motivate and inspire pupils and this is something that Fanfare does brilliantly!
Music is positive in our school – we sing in class and assemblies, provide orchestra, clarinet group, recorder groups, theory classes and instrumental lessons and there are numerous chances for our pupils to perform. And, thanks to Fanfare, some of our pupils can say that their music has been played to thousands of people and that they have worked with an internationally acclaimed orchestra and conductor. How inspiring is that?
Free Teacher Twilight Sessions
Sign up for a taster session to learn more about the competition and gain new approaches for creative composition ideas for the classroom.
The Clore Studio, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, WC2E 9DD
Tuesday 27 November, 17.30 – 19.30
Book online here.
The Culver Centre, Daiglen Drive, South Ockendon; Essex, RM15 5RR
Wednesday 28 November, 17.00 – 19.00
Booking via email: firstname.lastname@example.com
The Crucible Theatre, 55 Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1 1DA
Thursday 6 December, 17.00 – 19.00 followed by a free ticket to attend the Ensemble 360 concert afterwards.
Booking via email: firstname.lastname@example.com
The Fanfare Competition is back for the new season, giving 11-16 year olds the chance to have their music played every night at the Royal Opera House to signal the start and intervals of performances.
After the competition closing date on Friday 4 March, 2013, up to ten fanfares will be selected and the winners invited to develop their initial idea with a professional composer. The fanfares will then be arranged and recorded by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under the baton of conductor Antonio Pappano. The winners will work closely with Antonio during the recording session so that it is played just as they imagined.
If you'd like to know how to encourage your pupils to enter, we've created a range of free resources for Fanfare, available to any teacher. They include videos, interactive whiteboard flipcharts as well as comprehensive schemes of work with links to the curriculum.
Here's a run down of what's on offer:
Videos on YouTube
The Fanfare Competition playlist on our YouTube channel is full of videos that can be shown in the classroom. These include videos of musicians from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House playing excerpts of fanfares found in opera and ballet. You can also watch interviews with Antonio Pappano and composers Orlando Gough and Hannah Conway about ways of creating music.
Composers Notebook
The composer's notebook is a visual mind map, full of little sparks of inspiration for students starting work on creating their short snappy fanfare.
Interactive Whiteboard
We have developed a number of interactive whiteboard resources with Promethean Planet. These are free and can be used with SMARTboards or Promethean platforms. The three flipcharts, What is a Fanfare?, Composing a Fanfare and Fanfares: Their Musical Ingredients provide resources for a 30-minute music lesson.
Fanfare Curriculum Units
These units for both Key Stage 3 and 4 provide teachers with example schemes of work which link into the music curriculum, meaning they can get straight into working on the topic of fanfares with their students. These units were developed in collaboration with Chris Hiscock, General Adviser for Music Cambridgeshire County Council.
These Fanfare resources and others can be found on the TES and teaching music websites.
We hope you find the resources useful – if you have any feedback on elements that you've used in the past do let us know.]]>
One of the most controversial figures in 20th century music, John Cage's music attracts as much disapproval and bamboozlement as it does admiration.
Born 100 years ago today (5 September), John Cage is perhaps most famous for 4′33", a three-movement composition with a score that instructed performers not to play for the entire duration in an attempt to get the listener to listen to the ambient sounds of the performance space. Cage stated that it was his most important work.
The composer was immersed in left-field music from a young age and was taught by the likes of Arnold Schoenberg, the innovator of the 12-tone technique. As he developed as an artist, he became increasingly influenced by Asian culture; specifically Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism. His later work was based upon the principles of chance, using the I Ching, an ancient classical text, to create his pieces.
As well as being a member of the musical avant-garde, Cage was influential in the field of modern dance, collaborating with choreographer Merce Cunningham. His association with the world of dance began with him taking the job of accompanist at UCLA where he produced music and lectured.It was at this time that Cage began experimenting with unorthodox instrumentation.
Later in his life, Cage turned to opera and produced five works, each with the title Europera. The first of these was premiered in 1987 and the pieces have no conductor, rather the performers (including dancers) are guided by projections of a digital clock. The libretto interrupts and juxtaposes traditional operatic narratives - the first piece's libretto begins; "Dressed as an Irish princess, he gives birth; they plot to overthrow the French".
Twenty years after his death, his influence lives on with the likes of Philip Glass, Aphex Twin, Sonic Youth and Radiohead all revering him.
Watch John Cage perform Water Walk, a piece scored for - among other instruments - a rubber duck, bath and five radios:
What do you think of John Cage's work?]]>
The African continent is home to over one billion people, more than 50 countries and over 1,000 local languages. This immense diversity makes it difficult to generalize about the continent and its music. So what follows is just an enthusiastic toe-dip into the waters based on nearly three wild and happy decades of playing African music on dance floors and on the radio.
Over the course of the last century, the music of Africa and its diaspora, in all its varied forms, has undoubtedly become the most successful and influential form of popular music on the planet. With the rise of US minimalists, such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, and European composers like Györgi Ligeti – all of whom have been influenced by African music – its impact on contemporary classical music has grown ever stronger. African music is so much part of our musical DNA that first-time listeners to music from the continent are going to feel a frisson of recognition, a sense they're coming home.
The organic, circular patterns of African music can be heard in contemporary dance music, be it house, dub step, rap or grime. And the roots of rap music can be traced back to African musical traditions: the widespread practice of telling stories over rhythms, and bass lines that mimic speech and singing patterns.
Three centuries of systematic enslavement and enforced removal of the peoples of West Africa spread their culture and music throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. The blues, field songs and the harmonies of spirituals all testify to the influence of Africans who were stolen from their motherland. The people whose distant memories embraced the fluent playing of Manding string instruments like ngonis (lute-like instruments) and koras adapted to the guitar and violin, and invented the banjo, with its membraneous soundboard.
Watch Mamadou Diabaté play a traditional Malian melody on the kora:
Drums were forbidden to slaves on plantations in the United States. But in Latin America and the Caribbean, the clave rhythm from Ghana and Nyabingi-like rhythms from East Africa underpinned a musical evolution that led to son, merengue and salsa on the one hand, and reggae, cumbia and reggeo on the other.
Watch a drumming circle from Ghana:
By the early years of the 20th century, evolving musical forms such as blues, jazz, beguines, tango and samba started to journey back to Africa. They travelled via migrant musicians and sailors. As the century progressed, they also spread via records, radio, touring musical stars, television, film and the internet. The diaspora continues to bring it all back home to Africa, where music mutates and bounces back to the world.
African music: key facts
Max Reinhardt presents Late Junction on BBC Radio 3 – an eclectic mix of world music, both ancient and contemporary.]]>
"Without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat" and "perhaps the greatest drummer whoever lived". Praise indeed from two of the 20th century's most famous musicians, Fela Kuti and Brian Eno respectively.
Legendary drummer and composer Tony Allen will perform at the Royal Opera House as part of Yinka Shonibare's Africa-themed Deloitte Ignite festival, 50 years into a career that shows no signs of slowing down.
Tony rose to prominence in the mid -1960s alongside fellow Nigerian Fela Kuti as a pioneer of Afrobeat, a blend of jazz, traditional Yoruba and high life music. The self-taught drummer began to play aged 18 and devoured American music by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker alongside contemporary African tracks. The young Tony Allen began playing claves (sticks) before being promoted to the drum stool in Victor Olaiya's highlife act, the Cool Cats.
As part of Kuti's Africa '70, Tony soon found fame for his impressive percussion technique - drumming in a different time signature with each of his four limbs. "I like to extract the beat that's there and then try lots of different beats and different ways of drumming around it. That's the only way not to get bored," he told world music magazine Songlines.
Tony is quick to address the misconception that James Brown's visit to Lagos in 1970 was a turning point for the way African musicians played, "What really happened was that his musicians came to our club to see us every night after their show. The truth is that James Brown's band learned more from African musicians than we learned from James Brown."
His work with Fela Kuti and Africa '70 saw him record over thirty albums before leaving the band in 1979 to pursue a successful solo career. After his departure, Fela needed four drummers to replace him for live performances: such was his rhythmic ferocity behind the drum kit.
It was at this time that he developed Afrofunk, a hybrid of Afrobeat, electronica and rap. He rejects this label however, preferring to see the sound as a development of Afrobeat - an experiment.
Throughout his solo career, Tony has shown a willingness to broaden his musical palette as well as keeping alive the spirit of Afrobeat. He's collaborated with a number of musicians around the world including Blur frontman Damon Albarn, with whom he will perform at Deloitte Ignite. The duo recorded the album The Good, the Bad & the Queen in 2007 as one half of a supergroup also featuring Simon Tong of The Verve and Paul Simonon of The Clash. Since then Allen and Albarn have also teamed up with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea under the name Rocket Juice & the Moon.
At 72, Tony shows no time of letting up. He remains politicized, calling on the Nigerian government to combat poverty and unemployment. "I don't see Nigerians benefiting from all the oil they have," he told Reuters in 2008, "this government needs to create a social movement. It must go to the poor areas and ask people what their needs are."
On the future his plans are clear, "I just want to move forward. I kept on doing what I wanted to do - exploring and learning more."
One thing is for sure, whatever sonic path he treads at the Royal Opera House on Friday 31 August, the Deloitte Ignite audience are in for a treat.]]>
When an MP in the 1990s described the homeless as "the people you step over coming out of the Opera House", Matt Peacock was inspired to change that perception. He formed the charity Streetwise Opera and, earlier this summer, people who have experienced homelessness performed at the Royal Opera House. The festival, With One Voice, was sold out and streamed live online.
Part of the London 2012 Festival, the event was the first time that homeless people have been invited to take part in an Olympic celebration. "The Olympics is usually a time when the homeless are forgotten", Matt told us, "and, in the worst cases, are moved off the streets."
The chance to perform had a positive effect on Streetwise Opera's participants' lives. For many of them, this was their first public performance. "Everyone was excited and so keen to show a different side of homelessness, one of achievement rather than need. The feedback we've had has been extraordinary, many saying that it was the best experience of their lives," said Matt.
One participant, Patrick, began attending opera workshops in Nottingham in 2010. Reflecting on With One Voice, he said, "Everyone noticed the change in me since coming to Streetwise Opera – my partner, my kids, my friends. I was using heroin for 25 years and, for the first time, I can look my kids in the eye."
Streetwise Opera is keen to make this year's event an Olympic tradition: it is trying to persuade Rio to organize something similar for homeless or disadvantaged people during its Games in 2016. You can support Streetwise Opera's bid by signing a petition that will go to the IOC and the Rio 2016 committee.]]>
The Royal Opera House is to swap the sounds of Puccini, Wagner and Mozart for the rhythmic strains of contemporary afrobeat, soul and jazz during this year's Africa-inspired Deloitte Ignite festival.
The event, part of a weekend curated by artist Yinka Shonibare, will take place in the Linbury Studio Theatre on Saturday 1 September and will be headlined by BBC Radio 1Xtra's DJ Edu. As part of his weekly Destination Africa radio show, Edu plays a mix of African hip hop, R&B, dancehall, garage and drum and bass.
Also performing will be contemporary African jazz-folk-soul singer songwriter Bumi Thomas. Born in Glasgow and raised in the Nigerian desert and Lagos, Bumi's music explores love and identity.
Edu and Bumi will be joined by London-based neo-soul singer songwriter Debra Debs. Influenced by the likes of Mary J Blige, Toni Braxton and Lauryn Hill, Debra's socially conscious musical storytelling rounds out the bill with a sound grounded in neosoul and 90s R&B.
Tickets for this event are £10 in advance or £12 on the door. Buy now
Find out more about this year's Deloitte Ignite, a weekend of African-influenced cinema, visual art, music and food. The festival runs from 31 August - 2 September.]]>
Artistic Director of Hot House, Gareth Malone, takes you through the piece's finale in this short film. A new commission by composer Julian Grant and librettist Stephen Plaice, Hot House is part of a massive event called One Big Stage, organized by the ROH Education Department. A community project bringing together over 150 young people to perform a new opera and dance work, Hot House is the latest in a long line of projects Gareth had done with the Royal Opera House.
Join the chart-topping choirmaster and the Youth Opera Company of the Royal Opera House and some of the talented young cast as they warm up for the Hot House finale.
Gareth recently revealed that he too will be on stage in costume with the Youth Opera Company, although he wasn't prepared to tell us what he would be wearing.
Hot House will be performed on Sunday 22 July as part of One Big Stage.]]>
Richard Jones's production of Il tabarro is to be broadcast on BBC Four tonight (Friday 15 June) at 8pm. The three operas that make up Il trittico are to be broadcast on consecutive Fridays, with Suor Angelica to be shown next week and Gianni Schicchi the week after.
The broadcast offers another chance to catch a Royal Philharmonic Society award-nominated performance from Eva-Maria Westbroek. The Dutch soprano sings the role of Giorgetta.
The luscious score was explored by our Music Director, Antonio Pappano, at an ROH Insights event last year. The evening saw Antonio showcasing extracts from the piece, as well as discussing Puccini's composition. You can watch a clip from the session below or download it from iTunes U.
In the run up to opening night, ROH News contributor Gavin Plumley wrote a series about Il trittico on his blog, Entartete Musik. Find out what influenced the piece.
And if you can't wait until next Friday for another Il trittico fix, it's just been released on DVD and is available from the Royal Opera House shop and online from Opus Arte.]]>
Seven Royal Opera performances are to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as part of the station's Opera on 3 summer season.
The run of broadcasts recorded at Covent Garden begins on 19 May with Judith Weir's Miss Fortune which received its British premiere earlier this year. The opera, based on a Sicilian folk tale stars Emma Bell, Jacques Imbrailo and chart-topping Noah Stewart.
As well as a number of core repertory pieces, there will also be an opportunity to hear Covent Garden rarities including Rusalka - conducted to acclaim by Yannick Nézet-Séguin - and Falstaff, currently on stage.
Broadcast dates are as follows:
The season also features broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera, New York and English National Opera. All programmes will begin at 6pm.]]>
After a shortlisting and selection process involving staff and artists from the Royal Opera House, we are pleased to announce that the following 10 fanfares were chosen as winners of this year's Fanfare competition:
Key Stage 3 (age 11-14)
Key Stage 4 (age 15-16)
Listen to the winners
The annual Fanfare competition is open to 11-16 year olds and gives young people the opportunity to create a short piece of music to alert to alert thousands of people to return to their seats during the intervals during performances of opera and ballet.
As with previous years, the standard of entries was extremely high and we'd like to thank everyone who composed entries. The short listing panel and judges were particularly impressed by the final 10 Fanfares for their attention-grabbing qualities and creative flair.
We're excited to meet all the winners in the coming weeks when they visit the Royal Opera House to work with composer Duncan Chapman and members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House to develop and scale up their original ideas for a full orchestra.
Their final fanfares will be recorded by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under the baton of Antonio Pappano. They can then be heard before and during all performances at the Royal Opera House for a year from Saturday 30 June when the winners will attend a special reception with their teachers and family.
More information can be found on our Fanfare page.]]>
Hot House is a new opera and dance work commission by composer, Julian Grant and librettist Stephen Plaice. It will be performed on the Royal Opera House Main Stage by a national company that has been brought together by ROH Education.
Over the last few years we have been working with young performers from the East and North West of England as part of the Royal Opera House's On the Road programme. They will now join together with our other partners from Thurrock, London and South East to form a single company of over 150 performers.
The show will be part of an event called One Big Stage, which will be at the Opera House on Sunday 22 July. Tickets will go on sale on 14 April.
Gareth Malone (BBC Two's The Choir and this year's Christmas No 1 with the Military Wives) is the event's Artistic Director and he is thrilled to be returning to his roots in opera and music education, saying,
This is an amazing opportunity to bring together ballet, opera and education on the main stage of the Royal Opera House and to celebrate the unique history of the building and its role as a national centre of excellence. I'm personally incredibly excited about working with talented people from a wide-range of backgrounds from across the country to create a memorable piece of theatre. We're putting young people at the heart of what the Royal Opera House does by giving them unprecedented access to the stage and giving the next generation of performers the chance to perform opera and ballet at the highest level.
Hot House is based on the Old Price Riots, three months in 1809 when audiences objected so violently to increased ticket prices at the Theatre Royal (now the Royal Opera House) that the management were forced to back down.
The production will involve:
Among the artistic team guiding the young performers will be: director and former Jette Parker Young Artist, Thomas Guthrie; choreographer and current ROH2 Associate Artist, Sarah Dowling; conductor and current JPYA, Geoffrey Paterson; designer, Rhys Jarman; costume designer, Lesley Ford; and lighting designer, Lucy Carter.
Hours of work have already gone into creating music, movement and design for the show, but as the whole company starts coming together for rehearsals in Covent Garden the excitement is really building.
If you are interested in supporting Education and their excellent work please visit us for further information.]]>
Artist Yinka Shonibare is to curate Deloitte Ignite 2012.
Among other high profile works, the Turner-Prize nominated artist is known for creating Nelson's Ship in a bottle - a sculpture which, until recently, stood on the fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square.
Nigerian-born Yinka will curate this year's event, a three day cultural festival from 31 August to 2 September bringing Africa to the Royal Opera House through visual art, music and food for all the family.
Each year the festival attracts thousands of first time visitors to the Royal Opera House.
The festival, which is open to the public for free, is renowned for delivering a diverse multi-arts programme from cutting edge artists. Previous years have featured:
Further lineup details and ticket information will be released in due course.]]>
Opera and music productions to be staged as part of the 2012/13 season have now been announced. Beginning in September with a revival of The Ring Cycle - which sold out on the first day of booking - the season features six new productions including stagings by Royal Opera directors Kasper Holten and John Fulljames. The season also includes celebrations of the Verdi and Wagner bicentenaries, as well as six operas screened internationally as part of the Royal Opera House Cinema season.
Updated 22 April 2012: You can now watch Kasper Holten and Kevin O'Hare talk about highlights of the Royal Opera House 2012/13 season
Aside from The Ring Cycle, tickets are not yet available with booking details yet to be announced. For more information, please register your details.
All main stage unless detailed
* = New production
Der Ring des Nibelungen Richard Wagner
Dir: Keith Warner Cond: Antonio Pappano
Cast: Bryn Terfel (Wotan/Wanderer), Stig Anderson (Loge), Wolfgang Koch (Alberich), Gerhard Siegel (Mime), Sarah Connolly (Fricka),Maria Radner (Erda), Simon O'Neill (Siegmund), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), John Tomlinson (Hunding/Hagen), Susan Bullock (Brünnhilde), Stefan Vinke (Siegfried), Peter Coleman-Wright (Gunther/Donner), Rachel Willis-Sørensen (Gutrune), Mihoko Fujimura (Waltraute (Götterdämmerung)), Ann Petersen (Freia), Iain Paterson (Fasolt), Eric Halfvarson (Fafner), Andrew Rees (Froh)
Cycle One 24 | 26 | 29 Sept | 1 Oct
Cycle Two 2 | 4 | 7 | 9 Oct
Cycle Three 16 | 18 | 21 | 24 Oct
Cycle Four 26 | 28 | 31 Oct | 2 Nov
In the Locked Room/Ghost Patrol Huw Watkins/Stuart MacRae
Music Theatre Wales/Linbury Studio Theatre (London premiere)
Dir: Michael McCarthy, Matthew Richardson Cond: Michael Rafferty
27 | 28 | 29 Sept
Albert Herring Benjamin Britten
English Touring Opera/Linbury Studio Theatre
Dir: Christopher Rolls Cond: Michael Rosewell
4 | 6 | 10 Oct
Christ lag in Todes Banden/The Emperor of Atlantis Johann Sebastian Bach/Viktor Ullmann
English Touring Opera/Linbury Studio Theatre
Dir: James Conway Cond: Peter Selwyn.
5 | 12 Oct
The Lighthouse Peter Maxwell Davies
English Touring Opera/Linbury Studio Theatre
Dir: Theodore Huffman Cond: Geoffrey Paterson
11 | 13 Oct
L'elisir d'amore Gaetano Donizetti
Dir: Laurent Pelly Cond: Bruno Campanella
Cast: Aleksandra Kurzak (Adina), Roberto Alagna (Nemorino - 13, 16, 20, 23, 28 Nov; 1, 4 Dec), Stefan Pop (Nemorino - 7 Dec), Fabio Capitanucci (Belcore), Ambrogio Maestri (Doctor Dulcamara), Susana Gaspar (Giannetta)
13 | 16 | 20 | 23 | 28 Nov
1 | 4 | 7 Dec
Bravo Figaro Mark Thomas
ROH2/Linbury Studio Theatre
Dir: Hamish Pirie.
29 | 30 Nov
Robert le diable* Giacomo Meyerbeer
Dir: Laurent Pelly. Cond: Daniel Oren.
Cast: Bryan Hymel (Robert), John Relyea (Bertram), Jean-François Borras (Raimbaut), Marina Poplavskaya (Alice), TBC (Isabelle), Nicolas Courjal (Alberti)
6 | 9 mat | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 Dec
La bohème Giacomo Puccini
Dir: John Copley. Cond. Mark Elder/Alexander Joel.
Cast:Rolando Villazón (Rodolfo - Dec; 3, 7, 10 Jan), Dmytro Popov (Rodolfo - 5, 18 Jan), Teodor Ilincai (Rodolfo - 16 mat, 18, 27 Feb; 2 mat, 5 Mar), Vittorio Grigolo (Rodolfo - 9, 12 Mar), Maija Kovalevska (Mimì - Dec; Jan), Anita Hartig (Mimì - 16 mat, 18, 27 Feb; 2 mat, 5 Mar), Hibla Gerzmava (Mimì - 9, 12 Mar), Stefania Dovhan (Musetta - Dec; 3, 5, 7, 10 Jan), Sonya Yoncheva (Musetta - Feb; Mar), Audun Iversen (Marcello - Dec; Jan), Gabriele Viviani (Feb; Mar)
17 | 20 | 22 Dec
3 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 18 Jan
16 mat | 18 | 27 Feb
2 mat | 5 | 9 | 12 Mar
The Minotaur Harrison Birtwistle
Dir: Stephen Langridge Cond: Antonio Pappano
Cast: Christine Rice (Ariadne), Johan Reuter (Theseus), John Tomlinson (The Minotaur), Elisabeth Meister (Ker), Andrew Watts (Snake Priestess), Alan Oke (Hiereus)
17 | 21 | 24 | 26 | 28 Jan
Eugene Onegin* Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
Dir: Kasper Holten Cond: Robin Ticciati
Cast: Krassimira Stoyanova (Tatyana), Simon Keenlyside (Eugene Onegin), Elena Maximova (Olga), Pavol Breslik (Lensky), Peter Rose (Prince Gremin), Diana Montague (Madame Larina), Kathleen Wilkinson (Filipyevna)
4 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 16 | 20 Feb
Written on Skin* George Benjamin
Dir: Katie Mitchell Cond: George Benjamin
Cast:Christopher Purves (Protector), Barbara Hannigan (Agnès), Bejun Mehta (First Angel/Boy), Victoria Simmonds (Second Angel/Marie), Allan Clayton (Third Angel/John)
8 | 11 | 16 | 18 | 22 Mar
Tosca Giacomo Puccini
Dir: Jonathan Kent Cond: Maurizio Benini/Daniel Oren
Cast: Massimo Giordano (Mario Cavaradossi - 2, 4, 6, 13, 16 mat Mar), Yonghoon Lee (Mario Cavaradossi - 20, 23, 26 Mar), Aleksandrs Antonenko (Mario Cavaradossi - Jul), Amanda Echalaz (Floria Tosca - 2, 4, 6, 13, 16 mat Mar), Kristine Opolais (Floria Tosca - 20, 23, 26 Mar), Martina Serafin (Floria Tosca - Jul), Michael Volle (Baron Scarpia - Mar), Scott Hendricks (Baron Scarpia - Jul)
2 | 4 | 6 | 13 | 16 mat | 20 | 23 | 26 March
9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 20 Jul
Nabucco* Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Daniele Abbado Cond: Nicola Luisotti
Cast: Leo Nucci (Nabucco - 30 Mar; 1, 4, 6, 8 Apr), Plácido Domingo (Nabucco - 15, 20, 23, 26 Apr), Andrea Carè (Ismaele), Vitalij Kowaljow (Zaccaria), Liudmyla Monastyrska (Abigaille), Marianna Pizzolato (Fenena)
30 March
1 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 15 | 20 | 23 | 26 Apr
Die Zauberflöte Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dir: David McVicar Cond: Julia Jones
Cast: Ekaterina Siurina (Pamina - Apr), Sophie Bevan (Pamina - May), Charles Castronovo (Tamino - Apr), Andrew Staples (Tamino - May), Christopher Maltman (Papageno - Apr), Simon Keenlyside (Papageno - May), Susana Gaspar (Papagena), Albina Shagimuratova (Queen of the Night), Brindley Sherratt (Sarastro - Apr), Sebastian Holecek (The Speaker), Peter Hoare (Monostatos - Apr)
16 | 18 | 22 | 24 | 27 | 29 Apr
3 | 7 | 9 May
The Firework-Maker's Daughter David Bruce
Co-commissioned by The Opera Group and ROH2, co-produced by The Opera Group and Opera North, in association with ROH2 and Watford Palace Theatre/Linbury Studio Theatre (London premiere)
Dir: John Fulljames Cond: TBC.
Don Carlo Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Nicholas Hytner Cond: Antonio Pappano
Cast: Jonas Kaufmann (Don Carlos - 4, 8, 11, 15, 18 May), Roberto Aronica (Don Carlos - 21, 25 May) Anja Harteros (Elizabeth of Valois), Mariusz Kwiecien (Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa), Christine Rice (Princess Eboli), Ferruccio Furlanetto (Philip II), Eric Halfvarson (The Grand Inquisitor)
4 | 8 | 11 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 25 May
La donna del lago Gioachino Rossini
Dir: John Fulljames Cond: Michele Mariotti
Cast: Joyce DiDonato (Elena), Juan Diego Flórez (Uberto), Daniela Barcellona (Malcolm), Simon Orfila (Douglas), Colin Lee (Rodrigo - May; 4 Jun), Michael Spyres (Rodrigo - 7, 11 Jun)
17 | 20 | 23 | 27 | 31 May
4 | 7 | 11 Jun
The Imporantance of Being Earnest Gerald Barry
Dir: Ramin Gray Cond: Tim Murray
Cast: Paul Curievici (John Worthing), Alan Ewing (Lady Bracknell), Stephanie Marshall (Gwendolen), Benedict Nelson (Algernon), Hilary Summers (Miss Prism), Simon Wilding (Merriman/Lane), Ida Falk Winland (Cecily)
14 | 15 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 21 | Jun
Gloriana* Benjamin Britten
Dir: Richard Jones Cond: Paul Daniel
Cast: Susan Bullock (Elizabeth I), Toby Spence (Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex), Patricia Bardon (Frances Devereux, Countess of Essex), Mark Stone (Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy), Kate Royal (Penelope, Lady Rich), Peter Coleman-Wright (Sir Robert Cecil), Clive Bayley (Sir Walter Raleigh), Ben Bevan (Henry Cuffe), Brindley Sherratt (Blind Ballad Singer)
20 | 22 | 24 | 29 Jun
4 | 6 Jul
Simon Boccanegra (1881 Version) Giuseppe Verdi
Dir: Elijah Moshinsky Cond: Antonio Pappano/Christopher Willis
Cast: Thomas Hampson (Simon Boccanegra), Hibla Gerzmava (Amelia Grimaldi), Ferruccio Furlanetto (Jacopo Fiesco), Russell Thomas (Gabriel Adorno), Dimitri Platanias (Paolo Albiani), Jihoon Kim (Pietro)
27 Jun
1 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 16 Jul
Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Concert
30 Jun
La rondine Giacomo Puccini
Dir: Nicholas Joël Cond: Marco Armiliato
Cast: Angela Gheorghiu (Magda de Civry - 5, 8, 11, 14, 17 Jul), Ermonela Jaho (13 mat, 20 mat, 21 Jul), Charles Castronovo (Ruggero Lastouc - 5, 8, 11, 14, 17 Jul), Atalla Ayan (Ruggero Lastouc - 13 MAT, 20MAT, 21 Jul)Sabina Puértolas (Lisette), Edgardas Montvidas (Prunier), Pietro Spagnoli (Rambaldo Fernandez)
5 | 8 | 11 | 13 mat | 14 | 17 | 20 mat | 21 Jul
The Cancticles Benjamin Britten
Dir: Neil Bartlett, Paule Constable
Iestyn Davies (Countertenor), Ian Bostridge (Tenor), Benedict Nelson (Baritone), Richard Watkins (Horn), Sally Pryce (Harp), Julius Drake (piano)
10 | 11 | 12 July
Capriccio in Concert Richard Strauss
Cond: Andrew Davis
Cast: Renée Fleming (Countess Madeleine), Christian Gerhaher (Olivier), Joseph Kaiser (Flamand), Peter Rose (La Roche), Bo Skovhus (The Count), Christine Rice (Clairon), Mary Plazas and Barry Banks (Italian singers)
19 | 21 mat Jul
Please note all details are subject to change.]]>
With this year's Fanfare competition well underway, we thought it would be helpful to gather some advice on what makes a good fanfare from one of the judges, Music Director of the Royal Opera Antonio Pappano.
For further inspiration, listen the entries already submitted.
The competition, now in its third year, gives 11-16 year olds the chance to have their music arranged by a professional composer and recorded by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under the baton of Pappano. These recordings are then played every night to let the audience know the performance is about to begin.
We're looking for entries to be short, attention-grabbing and imaginative. It doesn't matter whether you can read music or not, as long as you can record or play your ideas.
Entering the competition is easy; simply record your idea and upload it NUMU by Friday 23 March. Your entry can be a live recording of an instrument, your voice or can be created using computer software. We're looking for initial ideas that can then be developed with the help of a professional composer.
The judges are looking for ideas that stand out from the crowd and have potential to be developed, so why not have a go!]]>
Write an Opera equips teachers with the skills, resources and knowledge to support students' learning across the curriculum through the arts and creativity. It has proved popular with teachers in the UK and overseas.
The programme takes the form of a week-long residential course (11-18 August 2012) in Dartington, which is lead by a team of professional artists with extensive arts educational experience. Throughout the week, the teachers create an original opera, learning skills and techniques including set design, composition and libretto writing. Participants also focus on ways to engage their own students in every aspect of devising and staging an opera, from the text to marketing and box office.
After the residential course, the teachers return to school armed with the skills and resources to create an opera with their students over the academic year. The process can be adapted to suit the school and student's needs, and in the past operas have been successfully created in Primary, Secondary and Special schools across the UK.
"I've felt inspired and enthused to take this process back to school. The support from the tutors has been outstanding and I've learnt a lot!"
- Amy Paterson, Pool Hayes Arts and Community School, West Midlands
"I knew it would be a very creative experience but my expectations were exceeded. Because I learnt a lot about teaching too."
- Michelle Hepworth, Jubilee Primary School, London
Applications are now open to any teacher from Primary, Secondary and Special schools. Find out more information and apply.]]>
The Royal Opera House has worked with the Southbank Sinfonia since the orchestra was established in 2002 as a springboard for young professional musicians.
On 28 January the Southbank Sinfonia is to perform a concert dedicated to the memories of David Oppenheimer and Klaus Schiller in aid of Amnesty International and the Rose Theatre, Kingston. The programme will feature works including the overture to Le nozze di Figaro (a full production of which can be seen at the Royal Opera House from 11 February) and extracts from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, as well as the world premiere of David Oppenheimer's Deborah. The evening will be presented by David Suchet and Simon Russell Beale.
The two men to whom the concert is dedicated were close friends who both forged impressive careers in medicine; David Oppenheimer, who gave up a promising career as a composer to focus on medical research, and Klaus Schiller, a pioneering physician.
David Oppenheimer's daughter Juliet has worked at the ROH for over 30 years – as a full time member of the Royal Opera House Chorus until 1990 and in the Extra Chorus since then. She is currently appearing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
More information on the concert can be found at the website of the Bradshaw Foundation. Tickets can be booked from the Rose Theatre.]]>
On receiving the news, Antonio Pappano said, "I am astonished but hugely honoured by this news. I am so grateful to the Royal Opera House for providing me with a platform to make music and drama with a world-class orchestra and chorus communicating our passion for this amazing art-form."
Sir John Tomlinson, currently appearing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Covent Garden, said, "I have known and worked with Tony for 25 years now, and he commands my admiration and respect as a fine musician, an impressive pianist, a conductor who understands the singing voice like no other, and an intensely dedicated artistic leader of the Royal Opera House. All of us here in the House are absolutely delighted for him."
Tony Hall, Chief Executive, Royal Opera House said, "On behalf of everyone at the Royal Opera House, I'm absolutely thrilled and delighted that Tony Pappano has been knighted for his services to music. He has boundless energy and we all love working with him. His passion for opera communicates itself to people - those who know a lot about music and those who are new to it. We're very lucky to have him at Covent Garden. Tony has made a huge contribution to the musical life of this country, opera in particular, and works with many of the world's leading artists. It's wonderful recognition of his talent, passion and extraordinary commitment that he should be honoured in this way.
"It's also a great way for us all to celebrate the New Year, which sees some really momentous works of opera on our stage at Covent Garden over the coming months with Tony at the helm".
Antonio Pappano is conducting Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg until 8 January and you can hear the opera broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 at 2.45pm on New Year's Day.
Full details of the New Year's Honours list can be found on the Directgov website.]]>
The Chorus has been together for just seven months and is made up of members from the area around the Royal Opera House's production workshop. Our youngest member is eight and our oldest member is in her 80s. No auditions are held and anyone with an interest in music and singing is welcome. The range of ability is diverse with some members being extremely proficient singers, and others having no prior experience. Repertoire mixes opera as well as contemporary and choral works.
At the group's debut public performance on Sunday 11 December the Chorus performed a wonderful selection of pieces including a rousing chorus from Verdi's Il Trovatore and a moving piece from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. They also performed extracts from Menizotti's Amahl to a very receptive audience - the title role was sung by two of our youngest Chorus members, Ashley (10) and Blaise (9). Two soloists, Andrew Rees and Nicola Wydenbach, sang a lively duet as well as extracts from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Mozart's Idomeneo and the famous Brindisi from Verdi's La traviata. The climax saw an audience singalong of popular Christmas carols followed by mulled wine and mince pies.
We are actively seeking to increase our membership and are anticipating an exciting programme of events for the coming year. This will not just include some fabulous concerts, one of which will take place in Covent Garden, but also training and skills development for all singers. Newcomers will be able to get help with reading music, breathing and singing technique and more experienced singers will get the opportunity to develop their technique.
An opening evening will be held on 9 January 2012. Please email firstname.lastname@example.com or phone 01708 981200 to find out more.]]>
The High House Production Park in Purfleet was a-buzz yesterday as students from all over the Thames Gateway came together to celebrate their work and share feedback on the final stages of the two projects: Metamorphosis and Bright Sparks.
A performance project, Metamorphosis was created by students from Commonside Children's Support Service in Harlow. Taking inspiration from ROH2's The Metamorphosis, the students composed songs and designed sets with professional artists, working towards a Bronze Arts Award in the process. After their performance they met Edward Watson, Principal of The Royal Ballet and star of The Metamorphosis, presenting him with their sets. It was clear from their enthusiasm how much it meant to the students who took part.
Bright Sparks was a collaboration between the Royal Opera House and students from a group of Essex secondary schools: Shoeburyness High, Basildon Academy, Brentwood Ursuline and Gateway Academy. The project asked students for feedback about their experience of arts education and how it could be improved. The Key Stage 3 students from each school shared lots of ideas with us about what they thought motivated young people to get involved in the arts, and have become Bright Sparks Ambassadors within their schools.
Students also had the opportunity to quiz arts professionals including scriptwriters, actors, digital set designers and our own Edward Watson on their career choices.We hope that events like this open up the arts to students and give us valuable information about how to engage them with the arts – everyone involved certainly seemed to have a great time!
Teaching singing can be an exciting and inspiring way to engage students into the world of music. It's for this reason the Royal Opera House is embarking on a new programme that aims to put singing at the heart of schools' work.
Voices of the Future is a two year programme of professional development opportunities for teachers who are interested in gaining skills and confidence as singing leaders, to teach and inspire their teaching colleagues and pupils. This programme is specifically aimed at teachers across the Thurrock and the Thames Gateway, working in partnership with Essex County Council.
In consultation with Essex County Council, we've decided to work with teachers in Basildon, Billericay and Wickford in phase one of the project (March 2012 – July 13). We expect some participants to be music specialists and others to have a general knowledge with a passion for music and singing. We're particularly interested in collaborating with teachers who work with the upper end of Primary (Years 5 and 6) and lower end of Secondary (Years 7 and 8).
At the heart of the programme, there are three INSET days per year, focusing on a broad range of topics, including:
And it's not only in depth INSET days that participants will have the opportunity to experience. We feel it is important for teachers to have an understanding of the drama and decision making that goes on backstage and will therefore participants will be invited on a tour of the Royal Opera House and the the Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop in Thurrock. The programme will also include the chance to develop skills alongside a range of specialist vocal leaders and work towards personal goals and ambitions.
Apart from the cost of releasing teachers for the INSET days, participating in the programme is otherwise free!
To find out more or register your interest in being involved, please contact Stacey Kurtz, Education Officer: email@example.com
Voices of the Future is part of the Royal Opera House's large-scale programme of professional development for teachers in 2011-14, generously supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.]]>
The Royal Opera has launched The Show Must Go On, a new game for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch).
Ever wondered what it takes to create one of the magical stage performances at the Royal Opera House? The Show Must Go On puts the player in the shoes of an intrepid stage manager who has to cope with a string of back stage disasters.
Developed in conjunction with Hide and Seek, the app features a number of mini games relating to Royal Ballet and Royal Opera productions of The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. In the course of five mini-games the player has to manage lighting, props, set building, dressi