With Ruggero Leoncavallo’s rarity Zazá, the Theater an der Wien scored a coup with the grandiose house debutante Svetlana Aksenova in the title role. Christof Loy delivers a striking staging of the Verismo drama and conductor Stefan Soltez spiritedly leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien through the highly acclaimed evening. “It would take a whole newspaper page to praise all the performers appropriately”, praises Der Standard. Of particular note is Svetlana Aksenova as Zazá who “suffers the whole spectrum from intimate affection to raging jealousy and mute despair”, Nikolai Schukoff (Milio) “shows himself as a daredevil and a depressed mourner”, Christopher Maltman as Cascart “leads energetically and touchingly his already lost fight for his beloved.” An evening worth seeing and hearing!
Salzburg Festival 2022: Suor Angelica
In Suor Angelica the perspective has narrowed to the tragic fate of a single figure, the young nun Angelica. Banished to the convent for an indiscretion, she leads a joyless existence and waits for news of her son, whom she has been forbidden to see since his birth. When she learns that he has died, she resolves to put an end to her life. The climax of the opera is an extended monologue lasting 20 minutes in which Angelica works through her doubts as a devout Catholic and frees herself from her feelings of guilt and remorse. In a redemptive ending she finally transcends all her pain and escapes her agony. With a radiant finale Puccini opens up a path for her into the spheres of celestial paradise. “Overwhelming” Opernwelt
Salzburg Festival 2022: Gianni Schicchi
In Gianni Schicchi, with its playful levity, peals of unbounded, strident laughter ring out – albeit of the kind that can only be heard in hell. We are in Florence, in the house of Buoso Donati, who has just died. Once the will has been found, his assembled kinsfolk – degenerate aristocrats – discover they have been deprived of their inheritance. After initial reluctance they bring themselves to seek assistance from an unpopular newcomer, the cunning Gianni Schicchi. He sets to work, ruthlessly turning the situation to his own advantage – not for nothing does he rage through Dante’s Inferno as a kind of sinister poltergeist. “Great opera cinema!”
Kronenzeitung
Theater an der Wien: Zazà
With Ruggero Leoncavallo’s rarity Zazá, the Theater an der Wien scored a coup with the grandiose house debutante Svetlana Aksenova in the title role. Christof Loy delivers a striking staging of the Verismo drama and conductor Stefan Soltez spiritedly leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien through the highly acclaimed evening. At the center of the piece is the provincial variety theatre artist Zazà who soon finds herself between two men, but also between the life she has been used to up to now and the hope for the happiness of a secure middleclass existence through marriage and love. One is Cascart, her stage partner and former lover, whom she keeps afloat like her alcoholic mother. The other is the Parisian businessman and bon vivant Milio, whom she falls head over heels in love with, unaware that he has a wife and child in the capital. She finally sets him free and remains fatally unhappy in this piece. “It would take a whole newspaper page to praise all the performers appropriately”, praises Der Standard. Of particular note is
Svetlana Aksenova as Zazá who “suffers the whole spectrum from intimate affection to raging jealousy and mute despair”, Nikolai Schukoff (Milio) “shows himself as a daredevil and a depressed mourner”, Christopher Maltman as Cascart “leads energetically and touchingly his already lost fight for his beloved.” An evening worth seeing and hearing!
Puccini: Suor Angelica (Kerstmatinee 1999)
Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with a highly acclaimed perfomance of Puccini’s opera in one act, ‘Suor Angelica’, at the legendary AVRO Kerstmatinee in 1999.