In spite of what might look like a proliferation of artistry in opera, the genre still remains dead-locked, notoriously conservative form in which art is most often reduced to pedantry, or to a mere entertainment.
I didn't blog about bad surprises this year, and I'm still unsure if it's worth talking about
Salomé and
The Queen of Spades in my beloved Komische Oper in Berlin, or a pathetic recreation of a 40 years old production of
Le Nozze di Figaro (suffocated) in a vast hall of Opéra Bastille, about
Dan Jemmett who in one year changed from a delightfully inventive producer to the author of an amorphous pile of kitschy boredom, or the Paris Opera staging one of the lousiest operas ever composed,
Luisa Miller, with a phenomenal Krassimira Stoyanova almost looking like condemned to sing in what must be one of the crappiest productions ever, and so on and so on... Without mentioning the TV set-backs from London and Vienna with major snoozers
Adriana Lecouvreur and
Anna Bolena respectively, or the money wasting useless machinery in uninspiring
Die Walküre live broadcast from The Met...
All in all, it's been less good a year for me so far, as far as opera is concerned, especially when compared with the last 4-5 years.
I guess I did well by not blogging about those numerous disappointments. ;)
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| A scene from Act-2 of Castellucci's production of Parsifal at La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels |
Happily, there were some truly wonderful shows that made me stick to the opera genre.
The best musical treat was definitely
Barenboim conducting the
Staatskapelle in
Wozzeck during the Festtage in Berlin. Of all the singers I was the most impressed by
Anna Larsson (
Kundry) and
Stephen Gould (
Tannhäuser).
The most filling, illuminating, intriguing... artistic event in opera --that seemed like a life changing experience to many people-- took place last January in Brussels:
Romeo Castellucci's
Parsifal.
So
my list of good shows so far this year looks as follows:
