Directing
Day 3 of the Ring Cycle. DVD release June 2009.
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On a mission to Afghanistan, a military officer suffers a traumatic period in captivity. When he finally returns home, he finds his relationship with his family has changed forever. Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason and Danish director Kasper Holten transform Susanne Bier’s film Brødre into a captivating and vivid opera. Written to celebrate Aarhus as European Capital of Culture 2017, Bjarnason now conducts his bold domestic drama in his homeland for the first time.
Seebühne (or floating stage), with its 7,000 seat open-air amphitheatre, is the location for the French composers most successful opera. With a set designed by British artist Es Devlin, who has designed sets for stars such as Adele, U2, Take That and Kanye West, the stage sits on the water near the shores of the stunning Lake Constance in Austria. This romantic and dramatic setting regularly welcomes opera lovers from all over the world, where the productions are extravagantly original and innovative and frequently use the waters of the lake as an extension of the stage.
New 2019 version of the Kasper Holten’s 2014 production of Don Giovanni for the Royal Opera offers a glimpse inside the mind of one of opera’s most notorious seducers. With a spectacular revolving set by award winning designer Es Devlin, ingenious video projections by Luke Halls, and an ‘ideal cast on world beating form’ (The Independent), this staging brings Mozart’s dazzling score to life, in all its wit, glamour, and darkness.
This Wagner opera is rarely performed because of the scandals that engulfed the Magdeburg Theatre when it was performed in 1836 under the title The Novice of Palermo, and became known as a cursed opera from which the composer had to distance himself. Wagner's adaptation of the story reflects the rebellious mood of a Revolutionary Germany, vindicating sensual love and attack the fanatical repression of sexuality by a puritanical and hypocritical authority. As the prose says, "Shame to him whose cruel striking/Kills for faults of his own liking!". One of the most extraordinary musicals based on a text by Shakespeare, especially worthy of a new performance as it is four hundred years since the death of the Bard.
The impulsive and charismatic Don Giovanni travels through Europe seducing women, accompanied by his long-suffering servant Leporello. But when Don Giovanni commits murder, he unleashes a dark power beyond his control. Kasper Holten’s production is rich in both colourful comedy and exhilarating drama. Set designs by Es Devlin (Les Troyens) and costume designs by Anja Vang Kragh (Stella McCartney, John Galliano for Christian Dior), with video projections by Luke Halls and choreography by Signe Fabricius, portray the visually entrancing world of Don Giovanni. At the heart of the production are the beauty and invention of Mozart’s dazzling score, which ranges from gorgeous arias and dramatic duets to the brilliant layering of dance melodies that bring Act I to a virtuoso close.
The successful artist and playboy Juan is a notorious seducer of women, through his ability to be just what a woman dreams of: Charming, charismatic, strong, sensitive, sexual. Driven by a restless urge to conquer new women, use them, and throw them away, he has hired his friend Leporello to help create a masterpiece: A filmed database of all the women whose dreams Juan has shattered. We follow Juan and Leporello through 24 compressed hours. Juan seduces the young upper-class girl Anna, but ends up accidentally killing her father, a powerful police commissioner. The two friends run away, but Juan's constant need to seduce new women keeps interrupting their flight. As the police gains in on them, Juan also steals the young bride Zerlina from her groom Masetto, and soon a feverish manhunt is on for Juan.
Prologue to Ring Cycle. DVD release June 2009.
Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner with a German libretto by the composer. It is the second of the four operas that form Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The story of the opera is based on the Norse mythology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda.[1][2] In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one in a group of female figures who decide which soldiers die in battle and which live. Die Walküre's best-known excerpt is the "Ride of the Valkyries". DVD release June 2009.
The story concerns the enlightenment of the Christian King Roger II by a young shepherd who represents pagan ideals. Kasper Holten’s production (The Royal Opera’s first) of Król Roger (King Roger) brought the opera back to the London stage after an absence of almost 40 years. Karol Szymanowski’s masterpiece powerfully presents the dilemmas of culture versus nature and man versus beast, and movingly depicts King Roger’s inner struggles as he moves from an impossible life of repressed desires to the other extreme, giving in to his own demons. Meanwhile, Roger’s people, seduced by the promises of the mysterious Shepherd, are drawn towards totalitarianism and repression. Antonio Pappano conducts Szymanowksi’s opulent and beautiful score, with a cast including Mariusz Kwiecień as Roger (one of the greatest interpreters of the role today), Saimir Pirgu as the Shepherd, and Georgia Jarman in her Royal Opera debut as Roger’s loving queen Roxana.
A captain is cursed to sail the seas of the world forever, only allowed to make landfall once every seven years. Will he find the love of a faithful woman to break the curse? The Flying Dutchman is Richard Wagner’s operatic breakthrough. In the production of celebrated director Kasper Holten, an urban environment and the tempestuous world of the international art trade are underpinned by Wagner’s evocation of the power of love and the sea. Recorded in 24 November 2016. Digital release 31st July 2020.
Day 2 of the Ring Cycle. DVD release June 2009.
