Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera

Saw a revival of Don Giovanni directed by Kasper Holten and set by Es Devlin. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo brought a dark tone to Leporello, while Mariusz Kwiecień was a handsome if slightly lost Don Giovanni. The entire cast had good, strong voices. Somehow, they all tended to look down, or look at Marc Minkowski in the pit. I wondered was it because Minkowski's cues were few and not forthcoming. Coincidentally, the ensemble had lots of rough edges and there seemed to be a lack of rapport between the cast and the audience.

Oh and I did not like the last scene: Mariusz Kwiecień sang about imaginary supper, wine and handshake - but he was effectively dangling from the first floor of the set. The complete lack of representation of the final interaction between Don Giovanni the Commendatore (fine dark singing from Sir Willard) made for an unsatisfying end. A new production please.

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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...

Hänsel und Gretel at the Royal Opera

Having seen Hänsel und Gretel only a few months ago at Glyndebourne , I was looking forward to see how the Royal Opera will bring this fairytale opera to life. Christian Fenouillat pastoral set worked well. Like many operas with a small cast, he added a bounding box to reduce the size of the stage without losing perspective. Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau were believable Hänsel and Gretel respectively. Their stage acting (how they walked, jumped and cuddled) conveyed a real sense of innonance. Thomas Allen (their father) was on good form. The Dew Fairy (by Anita Watson) was fabulous with an orange duster and a yellow squirty spray cleaner. All in all, the creative team managed to strike a good balance between serious opera and fairytale. Colin Davis also did real justice to Humperdinck's lush Wagnerian score. It would be nice for this lovely work to remain in repertory around this time of the year to counter-balance the sickly sweek Nutcracker.

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