Production Director
Director
Director
"Giovanna d'Arco; ossia, la pulzella d'Orléans" is an operatic dramma lirico with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The opera partly reflects the story of Joan of Arc and is based on a play by Friedrich von Schiller, although claimed by the librettist to be "an entirely original Italian drama." If the thought of Anna Netrebko strutting her stuff in a suit of armour and tin hat sets your factor tingling then this is a must. It's an inconsistent opera but has some quite wonderful music along the way. The rest of the cast is good and the production won't offend either. Get it for Ms Netrebko's incredible performance alone.
Director
Puccini’s Japanese tragedy Madama Butterfly is given a ravishing production by The Royal Opera. Its alluring imagery of Japan from the 19th-century European Imagination heightens the intense clash of East and West. When the American naval officer Pinkerton seduces the young ‘Butterfly’ Cio-Cio-San, he seems to promise every happiness – but his cruel abandonment leads to her tragic self-sacrifice. Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera and renowned for his interpretations of Puccini, conducts an exceptionally fine cast with the Royal Opera Chorus and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Powerful performances show why Madama Butterfly remains one of the all-time operatic favourites.
Director
Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of dashing American officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return. Three years later, Cio-Cio-San and her little son see Pinkerton’s ship in the harbour. She excitedly expects his visit – but Pinkerton and his American wife Kate have come only to take the boy away, to raise him in America. Cio-Cio-San bids her son farewell and then takes her own life.
Director
Director
Cecilia Bartoli stars in this ebullient Zurich Opera House production of Rossini’s first French-language comedy opera described by the international press as “pure, unadulterated fun” and reminds us of her comic gifts and her naturalness as a stage actor — as well as her total sympathy with the music of Rossini.
Director
"Bartoli remains at her peak. Not only is her coloratura flawless, and her voice as colorful and ravishingly beautiful as ever, but her ability to use her incomparable technique at the service of expression has also deepened with age. As a seductress, Bartoli was irresistible. Teasing out her incomparably agile coloratura runs, she softened high notes to tickle the senses with a mixture of sweetness and delight. When, in the second act, she mounted a missile and diagonally ascended into the heavens, it felt as though she were riding the ultimate pink Cadillac off to her honeymoon rendezvous. And in her final aria, "Da tempeste il legno infranto" when she danced around the stage and adorned herself with strings of lights while flashing the trademark Bartoli smile, it was all one could do to resist running onstage and give her a huge hug."
Production Design
Gioachino Rossini, de 23 años, completó su obra maestra IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA increíblemente rápido, la leyenda lo tiene en solo 13 días, lo que Rossini atribuyó a "facilidad y mucho instinto". La ópera, caracterizada por la energía juvenil y el ingenio audaz, tiene todos los ingredientes para el caos cómico: una joven encarcelada, su guardián lujurioso y un joven pretendiente noble. Tramando hábilmente detrás de escena está Figaro, un personaje irreprimible e inventivo en el que muchos han visto un parecido con el joven Rossini. La partitura rebosa de brillantez musical, desde el famoso aria de entrada de Figaro hasta el frenesí del acto final. En esta grabación, Joyce DiDonato (Rosina) aporta un significado literal al viejo lema teatral ¡Rompe una pierna!
Director
Staging directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser infuse German composer Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera with more than a dollop of black humor in this 2008 London performance that's both enchanting and menacing. Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau play Hansel and Gretel, respectively, and beloved British baritone Thomas Allen portrays their father in an outstanding production led by maestro Colin Davis.
Director
Hamlet suspects his uncle has murdered his father to claim the throne of Denmark and the hand of Hamlet's mother, but the prince cannot decide whether or not he should take vengeance.
