Diary of a Culture Hedonist

Many of us have seen Peter Shaffer's Amadeus the film and got to know Salieri. But I guess few of us have seen the original staged version. So it was a delight to see this long awaited revival at National Theatre. Adam Gillen was an over-manic and energetic Amadeus - whether that amount of jumping up and down on stage was warranted was questionable. Lucian Msamati's rendition of Salieri was poised, pivoting from good to evil, compassionate to calculating - definitely the star of the show. It was remarkable the production included players from South Bank Sinfonia - playing incidental and Mozart's music while moving around stage with the actors and sets. The professional singers treated the audience to arias such as Queen of the Night's Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen . It was altogether a creative and impactful performance.

A revival of David Bösch’s new production for The Royal Opera. The entire cast was capable but there wasn't anything outstanding. Perhaps Gabor Bretz rendition of "Il balen del suo sorriso" was pretty good.

This 1980 production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann is surely becoming a classic in the Royal Opera's repertoire. Vittorio Grigòlo was amazing in the prologue as the delusional and drunken Hoffmann. And his transformation into the young impressionable lover throughout the three acts was every bit believable. Sonya Yoncheva's Antonia was probably the best of the three soprano roles (below).

It was a delight to hear this early Puccini work. Sondra Radvanovsky's rendition of Manon was credible with conviction. Her dying scene in the last act was to die for. des Grieux (Aleksandrs Antonenko) as good too. Jonathan Kent's production was provocative as ever - especially in Act II with the audience gawking at Manon. As ever, Pappano's pacing of the work was crucial to bring the drama to life.

The Nose. Was it an opera? A play? A drama with music? Not sure. It was a wierd story with a strange set. The best was when the cut-off noses doing can-can on stage. It was an entertaining work to see, I guess.

The Glyndebourne Festival Opera production was my benchmark of The Makropulos Case (that upside down piano marking time). This production at San Francisco Opera was certainly very well produced. The messy library and the real time clock made the production timeless. Nadja Michael as Emilia Marty was very good - her deep / mark mezzo done suggested her age (of 337) while the ring at the top added flamboyance. The rest of the male cast was adequate - considering Leoš Janáček was never kind to tenors. The string section of the orchestra was struggling with both rhythm and pitch - all sounded a little scratchy for my liking. Mikhail Tatarnikov held it all together in the pit.

Semyon Bychkov did an amazing job to giving the score flow, nuance and direction. The cast was mostly able to keep up - though not always: the ensemble fell apart once or twice. The set design (Ben Baur) was a little trying - is the drama really an act, stage within a stage? I wasn't convinced. None of the cast was outstanding in anyway.