In 2012, the Hamburg State Opera presented a new production of Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece Madama Butterfly. The internationally renowned director Vincent Boussard stages the opera, collaborating with star fashion designer Christian Lacroix and set designer Vincent Lemaire. Together they succeed in bringing to life the moving tragedy of the young Japanese geisha Cio-Cio San in a stylish and sophisticated production that focuses on the title role, impressively portrayed by Greek soprano Alexia Voulgaridou. Subtly conducted by Alexander Joel, the dynamic cast includes Romanian Tenor Teodor Ilincai as Cio-Cio San’s love interest, B.F. Pinkerton and Estonian baritone Lauri Vasar as Consul Sharpless. Madama Butterfly contains an enormous wealth of psychological poetry. Through his music, Giacomo Puccini lends his characters extremely rich and complex profiles and created an extraordinary explosive force.
Madama Butterfly
La Fanciulla del West
Puccini’s penultimate opera, based on the play by David Belasco, and which marked a new stylish departure for him, is set at the height of the notorious Californian Gold Rush. The orchestration and musical colour of this opera represent a major advance on Puccini’s previous work, especially in the careful interweaving of Western elements into an altogether larger canvas than anything he had tackled before. In this recording Piero Faggioni’s highly detailed staging is matched by Ken Adam’s superbly atmospheric sets. Carol Neblett sings the role of Minnie – ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ – Placido Domingo is as ignitable as ever in the role of Dick Johnson, alias the bandit Ramirez, and Silvano Carroli is the sinister Sheriff, Jack Rance.
Madama Butterfly
One of Puccini’s most popular works, Madama Butterfly contains some of the composer’s loveliest music. Its themes of love and heartbreak are common in almost every human experience and its plethora of beautiful melodies make it immediately attractive to audiences everywhere. This superb Verona production is memorable both visually and musically, and brilliantly evokes the opera’s Japanese setting. Raina Kabaivanska as the tragic heroine and Nazzareno Antinori as her American husband Pinkerton, who deserts her, give performances that capture the profound but elegant drama of the work.
Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut is one of the world’s great love stories. It is a tragic tale of a beguiling young woman, torn between true love and a desire for wealth, who discovers she can’t have both. A young student, Des Grieux, meets the beautiful, but capricious, Manon. They fall in love and he saves her from abduction by a rich old roué. But Manon cannot resist the lure of wealth and later allows herself to be seduced by the old man. Before long, however, she is bored, and when Des Grieux appears, her love is reignited. When the old man catches them together, Manon is arrested and deported to Louisiana. The compassionate ship’s captain allows Des Grieux to go with her, and she dies in his arms in the desert.
La fanciulla del West
Exactly 101 years after the world premiere of Puccini’s “La fanciulla del West” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Stockholm’s Royal Opera House now presents a brilliant, modern-day interpretation of this rarely played opera. While the lead role is sung by Nina Stemme, one of today’s best youthful-dramatic sopranos, the two male protagonists, John Lundgren and Aleksandrs Antonenko, can hardly be surpassed in vocal artistry and stage presence. Director Christof Loy stages the opera as an early Hollywood Western relating the impossible love of a young woman and the most wanted criminal in the West.
Tosca
Puccini’s verismo masterpiece demands a trio of vocal soloists of stellar quality. This Munich Festival production of “Tosca” meets all expectations. The great Finnish soprano Karita Mattila infuses her Tosca with passion and controlled intensity. As her lover Cavaradossi, Jonas Kaufmann once again confirms his status as one of the leading tenors of our time, and Juha Uusitalo’s evil Scarpia brims with dark menace.
Madama Butterfly
The superior cast of this production is dominated by Raffaella Angeletti in the title role, ‘certainly one of the best Butterflies of our time’ (ForumOpera.com), who has performed this role in many Italian theaters, as well as in Madrid and at the Vienna Staatsoper. As Pinkerton, Massimo Pisapia is ‘brilliant, bold and trim’ (L’Opinione) and Annunziata Vestri’s Suzuki ‘outstanding’ (Rinascita). The performance took place in the magnificent open-air neo-classical Arena Sferisterio built in the 1820s. Though unjustly garnering less international attention than other outdoor summer festivals such as Verona and Aix, the Sferisterio Opera Festival has become a true gem whose performances are enthusiastically acclaimed by audiences of genuine opera lovers from far and wide.
Turandot
This performjance is a presentation of no more and no less than the perfect blend of two human senses: a music lover’s eye and ear will both experience the very finest quality production. Alone the star-studded vocal ensemble, under the direction of internationally renowned director David Runnicles, guarantees a satisfactory interpretation of Puccini”s majestic opera. The aria, “Nessun dorma,” which has now become a global hit, is sung by the young Indiana-born tenor Michael Sylvester as Calaf. At the vanguard of the contemporary art genre, David Hockney has been hired as both director and designer to contribute his experience to this well-staged opera project.
La Bohème
From the San Francisco Opera 1988: Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni’s incomparable partnership as Rodolfo and Mimi, the tragic lovers in Puccini’s much-loved bittersweet opera, is captured for posterity in this live recording from the San Francisco opera. Francesca Zambello’s production boasts a superlative cast with Gino Quilico as Marcello, Nicolai Ghiaurov as Colline, Stephen Dickson as Schaunard and Sandra Pacetti as Musetta. The Italian conductor Tiziano Severini drew critical acclaim for his passionate and spontaneous reading of the score.