Acting
La Traviata is not only one of Giuseppe Verdi's best known works but ranks among the most popular operas of all times. Based on the novel and play La Dame aux camélias by Alexander Dumas (fils), the tragic story of the terminally ill courtesan Violetta who falls in love with the young gentleman Alfredo Germont has moved audiences to tears for more than 150 years. Live from the Arena di Verona, 2011
Alfredo Germont and the courtesan Violetta Valéry fall in love at a party in Violetta's Paris salon. Alfredo is determined to cure Violetta of her tuberculosis, and the couple leave Paris and begin a contented life in the country. But Violetta's happiness is destroyed when Alfredo's father Giorgio Germont pays her a visit. Richard Eyre's stunning naturalistic production contrasts the superficial glamour of 19th-century Parisian high life with intimate scenes for Violetta with Alfredo and Giorgio Germont, culminating in the heart-breaking final act.
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Il tabarro is a tale of jealousy and murder between Michele, his young wife Giorgetta and her lover Luigi, set aboard a barge on the Seine. Suor Angelica tells the story of the nun Angelica’s familial loss, sacrifice and suicide. Gianni Schicchi is an opera full of trickery, greed and romance as a family dispute breaks out over a missing will. The Olivier-nominated Royal Opera production featuring a trio of one-act Puccini operas was first performed together on the same bill at Covent Garden in September 2011, and was acclaimed by the Telegraph as "an operatic treat... three hours of gorgeous music that allows big voices to let emotion rip" and by the Evening Standard as "a triumphant vindication of the social awareness and dramatic power of Puccini's triptych". The trio of operas offers a panorama of emotions, with the dark and foreboding Il tabarro and comic Gianni Schicchi bookending a heart-wrenching Suor Angelica.
When the pianist Francesco Piemontesi hears an unreleased recording of the pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, it comes as a shock to him. This freedom of playing, these colors and nuances, this virtuosity, which is always presented with a smile, overwhelms him. He decides to explore what he believes he is hearing here: the alchemy of the piano.
The Pucchini opera "Turandot" will be shown completely new at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The new production by the Spanish video artist Franc Aleu refers with a wink to the history of the Catalan institution: 20 years ago, this very opera was resumed there after a fire in 1994 severely damaged the theater.
Musiques en fête has been held every summer since 2011 to kick off the Chorégies d'Orange season. This year, Musiques en fête pays tribute to cinema! Judith Chaine and Cyril Féraud will join 8,000 spectators at the Théâtre antique d'Orange for an unforgettable evening filled with the emotions and magic of the silver screen. Through the most beautiful film scores, as well as excerpts from operas, operettas, musicals, and French songs, this unique event will celebrate music with an eclectic program.
Ludovic Tézier is today one of the greatest baritones in the world. Behind this major voice of opera, both backstage and in everyday life, is a simple man, passionate about his art, but also his wife, Cassandre Berthon, a soprano. From the most prestigious stages to the intimacy of their home, from rehearsals to masterclasses, both the demands of interpretative work and the depth of soul that inhabits him are revealed. Driven by his natural humanity and the strength of his love, Ludovic unveils what makes Tézier’s voice exceptional.
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.
Verdi’s opera ‘La traviata’ directed by David McVicar and conducted by Renato Palumbo at Teatro Real Madrid in 2015. Verdi’s masterpiece is the tragic story of a high-society courtesan who renounces life itself to protect the honour of her lover, demonstrating with her self-sacrifice a nobility so lacking from the hypocritical bourgeois society that abuses and then rejects her.
A staging of Charles Gounod's "Faust", staged by Tobias Kratzer.
Giacomo Puccini’s final operatic masterpiece, Turandot, is one of the repertory’s most extravagant spectacles. And in the Met’s production, by legendary director Franco Zeffirelli, this tale of an icy Chinese princess and the mysterious prince vying to win her love takes on larger-than-life proportions. This performance, recorded as part of the company’s series of Live in HD cinema transmissions, stars Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska in the formidable title role, going head-to-head with tenor Yonghoon Lee as Prince Calàf, who must correctly answer Turandot’s three riddles or forfeit his head. Maestro Marco Armiliato, a veteran of nearly 500 Met performances, takes the podium to lead a stunning cast, which also features soprano Ermonela Jaho as the self-sacrificing Liù and bass-baritone Ferruccio Furlanetto as Calàf’s father, the blind king Timur.
After Tosca (2019), which marked Puccini’s entry into its repertoire, the Festival celebrates the centenary of the composer’s death this year by putting on his ‘Japanese tragedy’ Madame Butterfly: the cruel story of a vulnerable but strong and wilful heroine, driven by her blind perseverance to ritual suicide. By enveloping her with a bright lyricism and a supremely refined orchestration, Puccini reaches the heart of his artistic identity – reminding us of the real pleasure of tears. Conducting the orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, Daniele Rustioni offers the finest of backdrops to Ermonela Jaho, whose rare combination of force and delicacy has made her a go-to choice in this wonderful yet harrowing role, in which she is making her prized debut in Aix.
The “superb, sinister” Tales of Hoffmann at the Dutch National Opera with “excellent soloists, the impressive John Osborn” (Theaterkrant) and “Christine Rice, a vocally and physically voluptuous Giulietta” (bachtrack.com), “mezzosoprano Irene Roberts, who plays and sings brilliantly” (Groene Amsterdammer) and “Erwin Schrott, singing the four villains for the first time, made it look like a blast.” (bachtrack.com) “Les Contes d'Hoffmann is a parade of golden voices”. (Volkskrant) Maestro Rizzi conducted with elegance and momentum the chorus and the “excellent playing Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra”. (Volkskrant) “Spectacular” (Trouw) “This production effortlessly fascinates from start to finish.” (Theaterkrant)
Opera confronts us with extremes of emotion, sometimes delivering unforgettable, life-changing experiences. Fuoro sacro (‘Sacred Fire’) seeks out singers who have the power to pierce our hearts, presenting three of them at work in the most intimate details of their rehearsals and preparations. Ermonela Jaho, Barbara Hannigan and Asmik Grigorian are watched closely as some of their secrets are revealed: how they inhabit their roles and transform words and notation on a page into that intangible but powerful magic being communicated to audiences from the opera stage. Over 90 minutes of extras are included featuring vocal warm-ups and live performances accompanied by pianists Evgenia Rubinova, Reinbert de Leeuw and Francesco Piemontesi.
In Benoît Jacquot’s production, Manet’s Olympia dominates the stage of the Opéra Bastille. In 1863, the painting caused a scandal: the prostitute awaits her client, her expression proud, her demeanour assured. Is this Violetta? Like Olympia, Verdi’s most celebrated heroine surrenders to the spectator just as she surrenders to love, going so far as to die on stage, a woman’s ultimate sacrifice for her lover. Or might it be the spectator who strips her bare and intrudes upon her privacy, in the image of this milieu of social voyeurism? Whatever the case, these two women regard us with defiance and subjugate those who cannot help but look at them.
This adaptation of three tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a sprinkling of Goethe’s Faust, portrays the German poet as both narrator and hero recounting his love affairs with Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta. Robert Carsen’s spectacular production highlights the melancholy genius of a man marked by life, with a coherence and dramatic sense remarkable for a work that leaves numerous questions unanswered. Under the baton of Philippe Jordan, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Ermonela Jaho, Kate Aldrich, Yann Beuron and Ramón Vargas and Stefano Secco in the main role, interpret the legendary airs of this work whose brilliant mystery will continue to dazzle opera houses for countless years to come.
