Robert Gleadow

In this new "Marriage of Figaro", Jérémie Rhorer revisits this composer and US film director James Gray makes his first foray into opera. This opera is recorded for broadcast by Louise Narboni.

This is Laurent Pelly’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées staging of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, with a cast featuring Florian Sempey as Figaro, Catherine Trottmann as Rosina, and Michele Angelini as Il Conte Almaviva. Jérémie Rhorer conducts Le Cercle de l-Harmonie.

How faithful are women really? That is the question that Guglielmo and Ferrando ask themselves in Mozart’s comic opera Così Fan Tutte. To answer it, they put their fiancées to the test by pretending to go off to war and a short time later returning in disguise with the aim of seducing each other’s betrothed. Fortunately, the Opèra de Lausanne has no time for such moral grandstanding. This new staging of Così is Jean Liermier’s second production for Lausanne after his My Fair Lady in 2015. Joshua Weilerstein, artistic director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, pilots the orchestra through Mozart’s colourful score with Stéphanie Guérin (Dorabella), Robert Gleadow (Guglielmo), Valentina Nafornita (Fiordiligi), and Joel Prieto (Ferrando) in the roles of the tried and tested lovers.

Don Giovanni prides itself in being a dramma giocoso. Not an easy expression to translate, given how starkly contradictory the terms would appear to be. But dig below the surface and you are plunged into a delightful swirl of ambiguities. Nothing here is set in stone: the libertinage is passionate, but couples meet and part. Fate plays tricks with masks, right up until the final challenge.

DON GIOVANNI is one of the timeless classics of all opera. Mozart’s music, and the words of his great collaborator Da Ponte, are brought to life in Francesca Zambello’s engrossing production with its rich and colourful designs by Maria Bjornson. The music is memorable, dramatic and enjoyable: from the seductive solo voices of the famous ‘La ci darem la mano’ to the fabulous ensemble as Don Giovanni’s infatuated conquests, vengeful victims and their outraged relatives join forces for justice. And retribution does finally come to Don Giovanni, a serial womanizer and a murderer, with the searing flames of Hell ready to engulf him. Simon Keenlyside heads the outstanding cast at the Covent Garden Royal Opera House, conducted by renowned Mozart expert Charles Mackerras.