Macbeth in Muti's house: When in Rome do as the Romans do

Macbeth, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, December 9 2011

Director ..... Peter Stein
Conductor ..... Riccardo Muti

Macbeth ..... Dario Solari
Banco ..... Riccardo Zanellato
Lady Macbeth ..... Tatiana Serjan
Dama di Lady Macbeth ..... Anna Malavasi
Macduff ..... Antonio Poli
Malcolm ..... Antonio Corianò

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro dell’Opera
(Roberto Gabbiani)

Alek Shrader in Salzburg

I am not going to Salzburg this year for at least three reasons and my only regret is that I won't see one of my dearest operas, The Makropulos Affair, with our favorite Angela Denoke who --together with Johan Reuter and Aleš Briscein-- will certainly make this new Christoph Marthaler production extra special. To that add Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and you get more than a trip worthy material!

My problem is that this is about the only thing I am truly interested in in Salzburg this summer. Macbeth by Peter Stein, and with his bitterness Maestro Muti in the pit, is not exactly what would make me run to the Felsenreitschule even if I were in Salzburg right now.
As for Die Frau ohne Schatten (FroSch) it is an opera I like very much music-wise but again that alone would not make me make a trip to Salzburg in spite of its smashing cast [sadly the runs of FroSch and Makrop do not overlap, since they are both given at the big Festspielhaus]. Another thing about FroSch is that its premiere was live broadcast on German and Austrian TVs and since the video will be around soon...

Alek Shrader in Salzburg

Finally a revival of the Claus Guth production of Da Ponte Trilogy is of course a nice treat, but since I already saw all three operas both at the Haus für Mozart in Salzburg and on DVD, I guess it's fine to let my place to other folks to discover and enjoy the wonderful festival atmosphere in Salzburg (when the weather is good, that is).

Une soirée bourgeoise au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

What would you otherwise call a pot-pourri of Spanish and South-American themes played by the Orchestre National de France and directed by Riccardo Muti? A concert which was predictably to end with  Ravel's Bolero, AND with flowers thrown on the stage (not at all a custom in Paris) to express admiration for "Oh Mutiii!"?

You could ask why the heck I did go if I knew it was gonna be so full of it. For some complicated reasons I had to go, but I also wanted to see/listen to  Xavier De Maistre, who often accompanies our fave Diana Damrau, who was the first French musician admitted to Die Wiener Philharmoniker, and who pursues a successful solo career as well.

It all ended as expected: Xave was indeed excellent, while the maestro did the routine job to collect the appearance fee [OK, I liked de Falla's suite too] :)