Turandot at the Royal Opera

It's that dreaded aria that made me stop listening to Puccini's last opera Turandot.

Last night's performance of Turdandot was pretty good. Punchy chorus (though there were the occasional wayward moments). Big sound from the pit with Henrik Nánási at the helm. Marco Berti was a big, bolshy and tenorial Calaf. He sang everything well, and didn't give us a bombastic Nessun Dorma. Lise Lindstrom was a steely Turandot, with a tone that's reminiscent of Eva Turner. Eri Nakamura was a superlative Liu. And the three mandarins Ping (Dionysios Sourbis), Pang (David Butt Philip) and Pong(Doug Jones) were jumping, dancing, turning and singing it all. Go see it!

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Written On Skin at the Royal Opera

This was the first revival of George Benjamin's Written On Skin. As with contemporary operas, familiarity goes a long way in appreciating the work. In this revival, I found Christopher Purves's The Protector powerful and moving. Barbara Hannigan, who sang Agnès, was superb. The pure and slightly eerie tone of Iestyn Davies as The Boy completed the perfect cast.

Götterdämmerung at The Met

Carl Fillion's set design for The Ring at The Met caused a real stir at the premier. Though not having the luxury of seeing the whole Ring, I managed to get a ticket to see Götterdämmerung. Fabio Luisi at the helm of the large Met orchestra kept everything going. There was enough breathing space for the drama to unfold, and there were muscular moments that needed to punctuate the drama. Probably not as poised as Bernard Haitink at Covent Garden many years ago, or as gutsy as Antonio Pappano this season in the same house. But nonetheless very good. Deborah Voigt was a fine Brünhilde - as the role demands from beginning to end. Lars Cleveman was quite a believable Siegfried - youngish looking, jumps about, looking slightly naive on stage. Hans-Peter Köonig was OK - none of his phrases sent shiver down my spine as there was not enough evil. Back to the set. The rotating 'fingers' really worked (you can see them in this pic - sitting above the performers), especially

La Voix Humaine, Glyndebourne

Stéphanie d’Oustrac starred in this one act / single cast Poulenc opera. The minimalist stage (Caroline Ginet) consisted of a tilting platform with an old fashioned dial telephone. But that's all it took for the drama to unfold. d’Oustrac was able to draw us into her conversation, expressing the challenging feelings of frustration, anxiety, disappointment and dare we say hope? A superb performance it was.

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