An album as an opera. Pop music is theatrical, it lives on stories, constantly creating new characters of art. In addition, no other style has changed and influenced music reception as enduringly as pop music. Most people can draw biographical references on the map of pop mu-sic. So, it seems high time to open the doors of the opera to a new visitor. With its symphonic elements, dramatic singing lines and ethereal choir vocals, Vespertine seems to be the perfect model for the complex project. OehmsClassics begins the new partnership with the Nationaltheater Mannheim (NTM Edition) with a bang. Rarely has a premiere in Germany experienced such a press echo as this, in May 2018.
Bastille Musique presents its first release »Claude Vivier: Kopernikus« in a brilliant SWR studio recording by the Opera Factory Freiburg, the Holst-Sinfonietta and Klaus Simon (conductor). Besides the CD containing Vivier’s masterful chamber opera from 1980, which he called opéra-rituel de mort, the lavish package includes a 64-pages trilingual booklet (EN, FR, DE) and three photo leaflets with previously unpublished pictures of Claude Vivier as well as the artists during a staged performance.
The labels that are now gathered under the Universal Classics umbrella have a pretty impressive scorecard in the area of classical compilations. We've seen The Greatest Opera Show on Earth, The Yellow Guide: Classical Music, Best of the Millennium, and now there's The No. 1 Opera Album. But that's no surprise, since Universal has some of the finest interpreters in its catalogue to draw from. This two-CD set (at the price of one), for example, brings together the likes of Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, and many more. Yet the other key to a successful compilation is canny anthologizing, and here again, you have a nice selection to give you a smattering of opera's heavyweights from the Italian, German, and French repertory (there's even a step outside the standard framework with an aria from Dvorák's lovely Rusalka). Ranging from 1959 to 1997, the choices from back catalogue will doubtless be the entry ticket for many into this grandest of the arts.
This is the second creative project bringing together conductor Teodor Currentzis and director Peter Sellars (the first being the operatic double-bill of Iolanta and Perséphone staged in Madrid in 2012), and also the first collective production of three opera companies — the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Spanish Teatro Real and the English National Opera. The action is set in Central America. Spanish colonialists are at war with the native Mayan people. In the face of the armed forces the locals appear armed with bows and arrows, but they are mere children. Blood runs like a river. The Mayans resort to trickery – in order to infiltrate the enemy, the daughter of the Mayan chief becomes a concubine to the commander of the Spanish army. The plan brings her unexpected happiness (she falls in love with the commander and has children with him) but also tragedy (the Spanish colonialists continue the massacre of the Mayans). With nowhere to turn for help, the only hope is that the great Mayan gods will descend from the sky to the earth at the critical moment…
Coproduced with Siberia's Novosibirsk Opera, this new Macbeth uses cutting-edge multimedia technology to give the viewer a fresh perspective on the work. Google Earth satellite images plunge us into the heart of the action: a gloomy square surrounded by soulless buildings, and the interior of an aristocratic residence. Witches are no more a part of Tcherniakov's Macbeth that the duel was of Onegin, but once again the atmosphere is one of brooding claustrophobia. Tcherniakov has chosen a great cast, beginning with the marvellous Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana as Lady Macbeth. Greek baritone Dimitris Tiliakos is a powerful presence as Macbeth, while the Italians Ferruccio Furlanetto (bass) and Stefano Secco (tenor) are sumptuous as, respectively, Banquo and Macduff. In this, his second production at the Paris Opera, Teodor Currentzis, music director of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre conducts with verve and a splendid theatrical sense.
Semele was first presented in London in 1744; it was billed as an oratorio for murky reasons, but indeed it is operatic. I believe that this is the third recording of the work: John Eliot Gardiner’s (on Erato) is severely cut, and although much of the singing is good, it can’t compare with John Nelson’s complete, gorgeous performance (on DG) played on modern instruments. This latter is a lithe, brilliant show with Kathleen Battle in her greatest recording as the vain, self-destructive Semele and Marilyn Horne and Samuel Ramey close to magnificent, with tenor John Aler an elegant if slightly underpowered Jupiter.