Any performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at La Scala, Milan, is guaranteed to be an experience – but, when it’s a new production, it becomes a major event, especially given the theatre’s notoriously critical audience. Legendary stage director Peter Stein succeeds in delivering a lucid production acclaimed in equal measure by the press and public: “a perfect coup de théâtre” (Giornale della musica). A “stellar cast” (La Stampa) contributes to the production’s success under the musical direction of Verdi specialist Zubin Mehta, who leads the orchestra in a “gorgeously colourful performance”, while “the entire ensemble is brilliant in ist portrayal of the characters” (Die Presse).
Aida
Originally commissioned to celebrate the completion of the Suez Canal and the opening of Cairo’s new opera house, Verdi’s Egyptian epic Aida is here seen in a spectacular new staging specially mounted by the Teatro Regio Torino to celebrate the re-opening of Turin’s historic Museo Egizio, home to the world’s largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of the Cairo Museum. Conducted by the Teatro Regio’s Music Director, Gianandrea Noseda – one of the world’s finest Verdians and Musical America’s Conductor of the Year 2015 – Turin’s authentically Egyptian staging is directed in true Hollywood style by the Oscar-winning American film director William Friedkin, creator of such famous movies as “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection”. Amongst the first-rate cast, critics singled out the American soprano Kristin Lewis, who exhibits “a remarkable voice, which she uses with powerful dramatic instinct” (La Stampa), and the Georgian mezzosoprano Anita Rachvelishvili, whose Amneris “dominates the stage with her dark, rounded, irrestistible voice and extraordinary stage presence” (La Gazzetta Musicale).
Aida
Originally commissioned to celebrate the completion of the Suez Canal and the opening of Cairo’s new opera house, Verdi’s Egyptian epic Aida is here seen in a spectacular new staging in the Teatro Regio Torino by the Oscar-winning American film director William Friedkin, creator of such famous movies as The Exorcist and The French Connection. The cast featuring the American soprano Kristin Lewis, who exhibits “a remarkable voice, which she uses with powerful dramatic instinct” (La Stampa), and the Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, whose Amneris “dominates the stage with her dark, rounded, irrestistible voice and extraordinary stage presence” (La Gazzetta Musicale) is first-rate. All were united in praise of Noseda: “he controls everything – orchestra, singers, chorus, dancers, acrobats – with an all-encompassing overview” (La Stampa); “he knows exactly when it’s time to linger over a timbre, a colour, an expressive chord” (Corriere della Sera).
Aida
Any performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at La Scala, Milan, is guaranteed to be an experience – but, when it’s a new production, it becomes a major event, especially given the theatre’s notoriously critical audience. Legendary stage director Peter Stein succeeds in delivering a lucid production acclaimed in equal measure by the press and public: “a perfect coup de théâtre” (Giornale della musica). A “stellar cast” (La Stampa) contributes to the production’s success under the musical direction of Verdi specialist Zubin Mehta, who leads the orchestra in a “gorgeously colourful performance”, while “the entire ensemble is brilliant in its portrayal of the characters” (Die Presse).
Orfeo ed Euridice
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the small but ambitious Castell de Peralada Festival, the famous Catalan theatre collective La Fura dels Baus and its director Carlus Padrissa staged Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice. A splendid cast as well as an avant-garde production that makes extensive use of large projection screens and includes the members of the orchestra as actors onstage result in one of the most exciting opera performances in recent years. “La Fura’s concept is surprising and its originality demands our attention … it gives rise to moments of great beauty and evocative power” (El País).
Orfeo ed Euridice
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ambitious “Festival Internacional de Música Castell de Peralada”, the Catalan theater collective La Fura dels Baus and its director Carlus Padrissa have staged Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” with three splendid soloists in a production that confirms the Fura’s creativity. The most striking aspect of the production is the participation of the orchestral ensemble in the action. Padrissa also makes abundant stage use of the chorus, who depict souls or demons. With its stunning effects, expert lighting and video projections, the production grabs the viewer from the very start.
Jonas Kaufmann: Dolce Vita – Live at Waldbühne Berlin
Italy! Like nowhere else on earth – the sunshine and sea salt, the smell of citrus and coffee, a flirtatious glance, an incomparable song drawn deep from… the heart. Italy and ist immortal music have a magical pull on people like no other culture – and Jonas Kaufmann feels this particularly keenly. In his “Dolce Vita” concert at Berlin’s Waldbühne he pays tribute to this culture, this way of life that has conceived one immortal melody after the other for the tenor voice and influenced him so much. This is a heartfelt tribute to Italian music including Caruso, Mattinata, Parla più piano (‘The Godfather’ theme), Core ‘ngrato, Volare and famous arias by Verdi, Puccini and more!