NORMA tells the tragic story of a supposedly chaste druidic priestess, who is driven to murderous jealousy by her lover's inconstancy. But she forgoes vengeance, protects innocence, and sees to it that the guilty atone for their crimes. Fiorenza Cedolins, Sonia Ganassi, Vincenzo La Scola, and Andrea Papi star in this 2007 Gran Theatre Del Liceu/Grand Theatre de Geneve co-production of the Bellini opera.
The Artist proposes to the distrustful and skeptical Producer the staging of a new ballet starring… swans? What is the story? That of Prince Siegfried and his love for the beautiful Odette, victim of the spell cast by the evil sorcerer Rothbart, an enchantment that turns her and her friends into swans when the light of day tears the dark shadows of night. (The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, April 26th, 2014.)
Drama lyrique in five acts, after the play by Maruice Maeterlink
Desdemona in Verdi's Otello was a career role for soprano Renata Tebaldi, from her first operatic performance outside of Italy to her final appearance on the opera stage. Between those landmarks she performed the role nearly 100 times all over the world and made studio audio recordings that became reference recordings for the role. This 1962 production with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Giuseppe Patane was planned as a media event from the outset and blessedly captures a consummate artist in a signature role at the peak of her gifts.
Giacomo Puccini's bittersweet opera of high-spirited bohemians and the doomed love between Rodolfo, the idealistic poet and Mimi, the consumptive flower-maker, is a beautifully balanced series of tableaux depicting the infectious joie de vivre of youth and the tragic waste of disease and separation. The legendary and incomparable partnership of Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti as the two lovers has been captured in this special live recording from stage of the San Francisco Opera. Brian Large has adapted Francesca Zambello's production for video, further illuminating the fascinating interaction of Puccini's characters. Gino Quilico sings Marcello, the colorful and moody painter, whose tempestuous relationship with the flirtatious Musetta (sung by Sandra Pacetti), comically mirrors the more profound love of Rodolfo and Mimi. Nicolai Ghiaurov sings Colline.
The La Scala Rheingold in May 2010 inaugurated Guy Cassiers Ring-Cycle and introduces a completely new paradigm to this work. While before him Patrice Chéreau had laid his focus on a historical analysis from 1870 to 1930 Germany, Guy Cassiers’ Ring unfolds “from our own present-day moment; it [takes] place in ‘the now’, the Jetztzeit (Walter Benjamin), placing our present and our future into the context of the promises and curses that we have inherited from history … The Cassiers Ring shows how the globalized moment of 2010 continues to build on the Wagnerian vocabularies of 1870.” (Michael Steinberg) Cast with a number of opera stars like René Pape, Stephan Rügamer, Johannes Martin Kränzle and Anna Larsson and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, this Rheingold is bound to put the audience under its spell.
Shot over a two-year period observing Abbado: a) Rossini, Overture to 'll Barbiere di Siviglia' b) Schubert, Symphony no. 2 B-Major, D. 125 c) Arnold Schonberg, Kammersinfonie no. 1 E-Major op. 9 (Filmed in Venice, Gran Teatro La Fenice, in February 1995, Chamber Orchestra of Europe). a) Richard Strauss, Elektra (Deborah Polaski, Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovsek, Ferrucio Furlanetto) b) Beethoven, Symphony no 6 F-Major, op. 68, 'Pastorale' (Filmed in the Festspielhaus Salzburg on the occasion of the Easter Festival, April 1995, Berlin Philharmonic). a) Beethoven, Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 3 C-MINOR, OP. 37 (Maria Joao Pires) b) Bruckner, Symphony no. 9 D-Minor (Filmed in Paris, Cite de la Musique, in August 1995, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra).
Live performance of Verdi's Missa da Requiem at the Edinburgh Festival in 1982. An all-star quartet of soloists under the baton of Claudio Abbado, recorded in high definition audio.
La Scala went all out for its 1986 production of this grandest of grand operas, with a strong cast and, most important for a video recording, a larger-than-life staging. The Triumph Scene in Act II is by no means Aida's only attraction, but it is the part that makes the strongest and most lasting impression and it is the visual and musical climax of this production. Stage director Luca Ronconi brings on a procession to dwarf all processions: looted treasures, heroic statuary, miserable captives struggling under the lash of whip-bearing slave drivers. On par with these visuals is Lorin Maazel's first-class performance of the popular Grand March with the outstanding La Scala chorus and orchestra. In Act III, the contrasting tranquility of the Nile Scene also gets a visual treatment to match the music's qualities.
Richard Wagner called Die Walküre the “first evening” of the Ring of the Nibelung; he called Das Rheingold the prologue or Vorabend. Musically and dramatically, we are introduced to a radically new and different world when the opening bars of Die Walküre resound. A fully developed orchestral palette of Leitmotivs paints a wild storm scene, and the curtain rises on a modest dwelling: a fully human scene that has nothing to do with the gods, dwarves and nymphs of Das Rheingold. At the same time, however, the way Die Walküre portrays radical beginnings reveals some telling reminiscences of the unfolding of Das Rheingold. Die Walküre is exciting and deeply feeling drama.
For those with any interest in Vivaldi's operas Orlando Furioso is essential viewing, being a 1989 San Francisco Opera revival by Pier Luigi Pizzi of his own 1979 production which was largely responsible for beginning modern interest in Vivaldi's stage work. The composer first premiered Orlando finto pazzo in 1714, but the Orlando Furioso finalised in 1727 was so heavily reworked as to be virtually an entirely new opera, and so successful Handel set the same epic poem by Aristo under the title Alcina in 1735.
A production of Mozart's opera recorded live at Zurich Opera House in 2000. Cecilia Bartoli leads an all-star cast including Roberto Saccà, Liliana Nikiteanu, and Agnes Baltsa. The conductor is Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Filmed live at the Zurich Opera House in February 2000 on a set which visualises the subtitle "The School for Lovers", the plot revolves around two army officers arguing about the fidelity of their brides, then setting out to test their chastity. Despite the often playful humour, this is not only psychologically telling music-making, but reveals Mozart exploring the structure of opera, discarding convention to mix large ensemble sections with arias for as many different combinations of singers as possible. With Liliana Nikiteanu attractively contrasted with Bartoli, and thoroughly convincing performances by Roberto Sacca (Ferrando) and Oliver Widmer (Guilelmo), this Così has a freshness and flow which, coupled with the timeless romantic themes, feels very contemporary.
The work was given its first performance in Rome in 1812. It is still unclear whether Rossini was 14 or 18 when he wrote it; what is beyond doubt, however, is the anticipation of great things to come. The libretto is a far-fetched tale of feuding kings, mistaken identities, disguises and cruel fates typical of the late 18th-century opera seria. Young stage director Davide Livermore, heading a production of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, turns the libretto into a ghost story, setting the action behind the stage of an opera house, when everyone has left and all that remains are the spirits of an opera that yearns for the breath of life much like the practically forgotten Demetrio e Polibio itself.
Diana Damrau, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Pietro Spagnoli, Marcella Orsatti Talamanca, and Monica Bacelli star in this La Scala production of the Mozart opera conducted by Gerard Korsten and directed by Giorgio Strehler.
Live 2001 production from the Zurich Opera House of the classic Mozart/Da Ponte opera, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting and directed for television and video by Brian Large.
Japan, early twentieth century. U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker. The broker, Goro, has procured him three servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madama Butterfly. He is enchanted with the fragile Cio-Cio-San. Cio-Cio-San is heard in the distance joyously singing of her wedding. In a quiet moment, Cio-Cio-San shows her bridegroom her few earthly treasures and tells him of her intention to embrace his Christian faith. The Imperial Commissioner performs the wedding ceremony, and the guests toast the couple. The celebration is interrupted by Cio-Cio-San's uncle, a Buddhist priest, who bursts in, cursing the girl for having renounced her ancestors' religion. Alone with Cio-Cio-San in the moonlit garden, her husband dries her tears, and she joins him in singing of their love.
Nancy Shade is persuasive as the awkward adolescent Marie, whose naiveté leads relentlessly to her downfall. Michael Ebbecke is sympathetic as Stolzius, her jilted lover and avenger, while William Cochran is properly brutish as Desportes, the officer who initiates her spiral of decline. Bernhard Kontarsky gets a dedicated response from his Stuttgart Opera forces, who perform with belief in this often excessive but always engrossing work. Recorded at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, 1989.
Götterdämmerung, the final instalment of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, is a story of human passions. Two essentially benevolent creatures, involved with and possibly doomed by their traffic with the gods, find treachery and evil in the world of the humans, and are ruined by the dark side of humanity. Iréne Theorin, acclaimed worldwide for her portrayal of Wagner’s heroines, stars as Brünnhilde opposite Lance Ryan, who continues his radiant portrayal of the tragic hero Siegfried. The strong cast also includes Mikhail Petrenko as the dark antagonist Hagen and Johannes Martin Kränzle, who once again shines as his father Alberich. Waltraud Meier has a memorable appearance as Brünnhilde’s sister Waltraute. With this 2013 recording of Götterdämmerung, the musically and visually compelling Scala Ring Cycle by Daniel Barenboim and Guy Cassiers was completed and proved to be one of the highlights of the Richard Wagner bicentenary.
Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of live opera on film, deserving of eternal availability. The DVD picture has great clarity, despite the darkness of Hans Schavernoch’s set design. Other than the cliché of a huge statue head, toppled on its side, the set manages to be suitably representative of a decaying palace as well as an imposing, theatrical space, dominated by the mammoth body of the statue from which the head apparently dropped, draped with the ropes that seem to have enabled the decapitation. Sooner or later most of the characters cling to and twist around those ropes, an apt stage metaphor for the remorseless repercussions from the murder of Agammenon by his unfaithful wife Klytämnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus. Reinhard Heinrich’s costumes capture a distant era while sustaining a creepily modern look — part Goth, part homeless, part Spa-wear.
