Acting
Platée is a character whose self-deception and entrancement places her in the middle of a heartless plot, devised by the gods to cure Juno of her obsessive jealousy over Jupiter and his romantic attachments. Jupiter pretends to fall in love with Platée only to abandon her once Juno arrives, proving she has no reason to be jealous. Comedy had traditionally played little part in French opera. Lully soon eliminated comic episodes from his tragedies; from then until the appearance of this work, only a handful of operas had comic themes. That for Platée is the mock marriage between the god Jupiter and an ugly marsh nymph, who is totally convinced of her own charms.
The lecherous Falstaff, with his infamous roving eye, finally meets his match when his underhand plans to solve money troubles have the three merry wives of Windsor conspiring to teach him a lesson. After Macbeth and Otello, Verdi breathes life into Shakespeare’s great comic character in this, his spectacular final opera. Conductor Richard Farnes makes his Garsington Opera debut in this new production directed by Prix de la critique Claude Rostand winner Bruno Ravella.
Captain's daughter Josephine and common sailor Ralph Rackstraw are in love. However, their relationship is complicated by her arranged marriage to the high-ranking Sir Joseph Porter. A secret about the characters' true identities revealed by Little Buttercup, which leads to a farcical resolution. English National Opera staging directed by Cal McCrystal.
A tale of thwarted love and mistaken and assumed identities, this comedy revolves around an ordinary man becoming ‘King for a Day’. Cavaliere di Belfiore has, to distract attention from the genuine monarch, assumed the identity of King Stanislas of Poland, and arrived with much pomp at the castle of Baron Kelbar near Brest. There he finds himself in the middle of preparations for two weddings: the baron's daughter Giulietta is, most unwillingly, to marry the elderly La Rocca, while a local military official is hoping for the hand of the Marchesa del Poggio. Can ‘King Stanislas’ use his regal power in time to disentangle these unhappy betrothals before his true identity is revealed?
Recorded at Britain's Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Leos Janacek's opera follows the exploits of Emilia Marty (Anja Silja), a sexually irresistible prima donna who experiences everything imaginable in her long life, which lasts longer than 300 years. Directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and conducted by Andrew Davis, this psychological opera blends comedy and personal tragedy to examine the perplexing mystery of human existence.
An open-air staging by Aldeburgh Music of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, on the beach that inspired the opera. A small seaside community struggles to accept a fisherman.
