Hippolyte et Aricie - Cinema broadcast from Glyndebourne

Hippolyte et Aricie (Act II, Hades) at Glyndebourne,
(c) Bill Cooper

I missed Jonathan Kent's new production of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie live at the Glyndebourne Festival, but was rather keen to experience Kent and designer Paul Brown's extravagant production so seeing it in the cinema seemed a good alternative, especially as my last experience of opera in the cinema was Zefirelli's film of Verdi's La Traviata, and things have moved on a bit since then. I went along to the live screening on 25 July at the Ritzy in Brixton. It wasn't strictly live, the film started at 6.15pm whereas the live event had started over an hour earlier, and we had just a 30 minute interval rather than a full 90 minutes.

The evening started with a short film about Glyndebourne and in the interval there was a film about the making of the opera. This latter, though short, was most illuminating as it included interviews with both Kent and Brown and helped put into focus their concept behind the production. Apart from that it was a high quality film of a live opera performance. Ed Lyon and Christiane Karg sang the title roles, with Sarah Connolly as Phedre (Hippolyte's step mother) and Stephane Degout as Thesee (Hippolyte's father and Phedre's husband), plus Julie Pasturaud as Oenone (Phedre's confidant). Katherine Watson (replacing the indisposed Stephanie d'Oustrac) was the goddess Diane, and Ana Quintas was l'Amour (Cupid). Francois Lis was Pluton, with Lic Felix as the fury Tisiphone, Samuel Boden was Mercure and Lis also played Neptune (Theseus's father). William Christie conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenement.

The Royal Opera House in the cinema - 2012/13

To the Odeon Cinema in Shaftesbury Avenue this morning, for the launch of the Royal Opera House's 2012/13 Cinema season. Now, I have to confess that so far I have never yet seen any of the recent offerings of live opera in the cinema, (the last time I saw an opera in the cinema it was Zeferelli's La Traviata when it was first released). Nor am I a great fan of seeing opera on the TV screen, but perhaps that's because I've only ever possessed rather tiny TV's! Anyway, at the Odeon, Tony Hall gave a brief speech and then we were treated to a 30 minute film profiling both the Royal Opera House's cinema activities and their forthcoming season of three ballets and six operas, seven given live. Then afterwards there was a Q&A.