Live opera returns to Northern Irelands with The Festival of Voice

Festival of Voice finalists, Belfast 2020

Live opera is returning to Northern Ireland this August, when Northern Ireland Opera brings The Festival of Voice to Belfast. Normally this annual celebration of the best young voices from the island of Ireland takes place in the Glenarm but the current restrictions mean that this year it will be taking place from 28-30 August 2020 in the First Church Belfast, under the theme of Myths and Legends.

The finalists for the competition are chosen from singers between the ages of 18 and 28, born on the island of Ireland. This year the five finalists are David Corr (baritone), David Howes (bass baritone), Andrew Irwin (tenor), Sarah Luttrell (mezzo-soprano) and Jade Phoenix (soprano), and they will be working with vocal coaches across the weekend and building to finale where they compete by performing arias, duets and Irish songs in front of a judging panel of opera experts. The winner is awarded a monetary prize and the chance to attend Canto al Serchio in Tuscany, run by Belfast-born international baritone, Bruno Caproni.

Also in the weekend there will be three BBC Radio 3 Recitals, from soprano Ailish Tynan, mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley and baritone James Newby, with accompanist Simon Lepper.  BBC Radio 3 will broadcast the recitals in the early autumn while the competition finale will be filmed and released via the Northern Ireland Opera YouTube channel in September. 

Full details from the Northern Ireland Opera website.

 

Turn your ears off: I sample Thomas Elwin's on-line singing lesson for English Touring Opera

Many people have been intending to use lockdown to do all those things that we have always intended to do but never have. Judging by activity on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, many have succeeded (has anyone managed to read Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past yet?), but many of us have failed dismally.

But, there to support and encourage us in one area are the artists of English Touring Opera (ETO). They should have been touring performances of Handel's Giulio Cesare, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Bach's St John Passion (on cancellation of the tour, ETO made a commitment to pay all 67 artists for all 52 performances). Instead, the singers have been creating a series of films of singing lessons for adults, and for children, which ETO has been releasing weekly on its YouTube channel.

With the adult singing lessons we have reached week nine, and so far there have been lessons from Stephan Loges, Jenny Stafford, Frederick Long, Edward Hawkins, Thomas Elwin, Susanna Hurrell, Themba Mvula, and Paula Sides. I decided to sample what was on offer and dropped in on Thomas Elwin's lesson, Turn your ears off.

Most amateur singers that I know have had singing lessons at some point in their careers, but whilst some do so regularly others, like myself, always mean to do more and never quite have the time. So lockdown is an ideal time for this. Admittedly, video is not quite the ideal medium as it lacks the interactiveness of real interaction, with the teacher listening to you and telling you what you are doing wrong. But there again, with only your own ears as critic, the results are perhaps less cutting.

But, in fact, the upshot of Elwin's lesson was that we should not trust our ears, and the nub of the lesson was a fascinating sequence about feeling the effect of the voice with the body, rather than listening to what you are singing. All singers are taught not to listen to themselves, but it is very tempting and Elwin's lesson was very salutary.

Of course, he didn't start there. All singing lessons start with a warm-up, and the fascinating thing is how different teachers vary it in different ways, so Elwin's warm-up was familiar yet different. And as anyone knows, singing is something of an imprecise science. If you are learning to play the violin the teacher can tell you where to put your fingers, how to hold the bow; but in singing, the instrument is to a large extent invisible and all a teacher can do is use analogy. And each singer, each teacher is a little different, using different analogies. Which, again, adds to the interest.

Then at the end there was the homework, each lesson begins with the teacher recapping the homework set previously, and then at the end giving you more, so that you have things to practice during the week. I suspect that following this activity might work better if there were more than one of you, a couple singing together for instance.

I have to admit, there is something slightly unnerving at having a singing lesson with the teacher staring at you intently from your computer screen for 20 minutes. And of course, there are 20 minutes of listening to yourself trying to emulate the wonderful sounds emanating from the computer's speakers.  And then there is that sense of unsatisfied curiosity, what is the music on the piano, what is it that you can see just round the corner in the window, what is that picture just glimpsed off camera; the endless fascinating of eavesdropping in someone else's house.

ETO's Adult Singing Lessons are available via the company's website, and via its YouTube channel, and there Kids' Singing Lessons too, so all the family can join in.

The Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet on-line

The view from the main stage Orchestra Pit at the Royal Opera House © ROH/Sim Canetty-Clarke, 2014

Like many other arts organisations, the Royal Opera House is launching free on-line content from its archive of performances. This will be made available on demand and for free via the Royal Opera House’s Facebook and YouTube channels, with the following opera and ballet performances planned: 

• Peter and the Wolf, The Royal Ballet, 2010 – 27 March 2020, 7pm GMT
• Handel: Acis and Galatea, The Royal Opera, 2009 (Danielle de Niese, Charles Workman, Matthew Rose, Lauren Cuthbertson, Edward Watson, Steven MacRae, Eric Underwood, directed: Wayne McGregor, conductor: Christopher Hogwood) – 3 April 2020, 7pm BST
• Mozart: Così fan tutte, The Royal Opera, 2010 (Charles Castronovo, Troy Cook, William Shimmell, Sally Matthews, Nino Surguladze, Helene Schneiderman, directed: Jonathan Miller & this performance revived by him, conductor: Julia Jones)– 10 April 2020, 7pm BST
• The Metamorphosis, The Royal Ballet, 2013 – 17 April 2020, 7pm BST

The Royal Opera House is also rolling out a curated programme on Marquee TV, the arts streaming service, and it is possible to sign up for this with a 30-day free trial, and this will give you access not only to Royal Opera and Royal Ballet performances, but the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Bolshoi and many more.

More on-line content is planned by the Royal Opera House in the coming weeks, so watch this space.

Creative Doubles: how combining roles can change how we look at an opera

Luigi Bassi in the title role
of Don Giovanni in 1787.

When Mozart's opera Don Giovanni premiered in Prague in 1787 the same singer, Giuseppe Lolli, performed the roles of Masetto and the Commendatore, and the same doubling with a different singer happened at the work's Viennese premiere in 1788. Whilst nowadays, we would be unlikely to cast the same singer in both roles (the Commendatore is normally sung by a darker, heavier voice than Masetto), this type of doubling of roles was quite common. It made perfect economic sense and made a more interesting challenge for the singer. The same sort of doubling had taken place at the premiere of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in Vienna in 1786, with Michael Kelly singing Basilio and Don Curzio, and Francesco Bussani singing Bartolo and Antonio, doublings of pairs of smaller roles which make ample practical sense but do not always happen nowadays.

Audiences of the time would not have made anything of this type of doubling, operas with large casts frequently had singers playing multiple roles. The fact that the same person appeared as, say, Masetto and the Commendatore did not say anything special about either character.

But modern audiences can experience a different kind of creative doubling, where having the same singer playing multiple roles links the roles psychologically, making them seem as if they are aspects of the same person, or in some cases creating a single composite character from multiple disparate roles.

Britten: Death in Venice - Gerald Finley and the players - Royal Opera
((c) ROH 2019 photographed by Catherine Ashmore)

Benjamin Britten wrote the lead baritone role in Death in Venice (1973) in this way. By linking seven apparently disparate roles Britten provides a mysterious and ominous thread running alongside Aschenbach's journey of self-revelation. Aschenbach seems to be accompanied by this strange character who plays a variety of functions at key moments on Aschenbach's journey. And whilst it is tempting to see this as very much a post-Freudian operatic development, one of Britten and librettist Myfanwy Piper's inspirations must have been the multiple baritone roles in Jacques Offenbach's final opera, Les Contes d'Hoffman.

The Gardeners asks more questions than it answers......this is a contemporary problem with no easy solution

Frances Wilson's The Cross-eyed Pianist blog has a lovely article by Joanna Wyld about the creation of the libretto for our opera The Gardeners. If you have ever wondered what goes into the writing of a new text for an opera, then head over to the blog and read on.

'The Gardeners asks more questions than it answers......this is a contemporary problem with no easy solution' 

https://crosseyedpianist.com/2019/05/18/the-gardeners-a-new-chamber-opera-by-robert-hugill-joanna-wyld/

Neapolitan revival: Rossini's Elizabeth in a rare staging from English Touring Opera

Rossini: Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra - John-Colyn Gyeantey, Mary Plazas, Luciano Botelho - ETO (© Richard Hubert Smith)

Rossini Elizabeth I (Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra); Mary Plazas, Luciano Botelho, John-Colyn Gyeantey, dir: James Conway, cond: John Andrews; English Touring Opera at Hackney Empire Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 2 March 2019 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Moments of real fire in Rossini's first opera for Naples, hampered by a poor libretto

Mary Plazas - (© Richard Hubert Smith)

English Touring Opera (ETO) is certainly not lacking in ambition, the company's latest season features Mozart's Idomeneo, Verdi's Macbeth and opened on Saturday 2 March 2019 at the Hackney Empire with Rossini's Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra (playing as Elizabeth I), the opera with which the young Rossini (age 22) stormed Naples. ETO's production was directed by James Conway and conducted by John Andrews with Mary Plazas as Elisabetta, Luciano Botelho as the Earl of Leciester, John-Colyn Gyeantey as the Duke of Norfolk, Lucy Hall as Matilde, Emma Stannard as Enrico and Joseph Doody as Guglielmo.

Rossini wrote nine operas for the Royal theatre in Naples, each in its way innovative and pushing boundaries, taking advantage of the large and well funded company, as well as a roster of distinguished singers centred round the soprano Isabella Colbran, along with a sequence of star tenors. In these operas Rossini would lay the foundations for much of Italian 19th century opera, yet they remain rarely done. The circumstances of their creation with the spectacular technical effects Rossini created for his singers means casting is tricky. Elisabetta is not Rossini's most innovative opera, but it was his first for Naples and he needed something big and showy to win over the cabals against him, and win them over he did. Though, like Handel with Rinaldo (his first opera for London), Rossini re-uses material from other operas as a showcase for his art.

The opera does have one major innovation, for the first time Rossini entirely ditched secco recitative (sung dialogue accompanied only by keyboard, or a small continuo group), and wrote fully orchestral accompanied recitative, a style the Neapolitans had grown accustomed to under the Napoleonic occupation of Naples.

Challenging perceptions: Hip-hop to Opera

Atiya, Bakary, David, George, Junior, Lakaydia, Mayowa, and Pablo from Archbishop Tenison's School, Oval
(Photo Opera Holland Park)

Michael Volpe, general director of Opera Holland Park (OHP), continues his imaginative campaign to de-mystify opera. In 2016 he introduced a group of seasoned football supporters to opera, and this year he has done the same with a group of teenagers from an inner London school. The resulting film Hip-hop to Opera tracks Atiya, Bakary, David, George, Junior, Lakaydia, Mayowa, and Pablo (from Archbishop Tenison's School, Oval) as they experience opera for the first time, and examines their reactions. The results are charming and heartwarming, the eight teenagers are articulate and thoughtful, and what is fascinating is the way that they realise that presenting them with opera is challenging them and taking them out of their comfort zone.

Of course, not every group of teenagers gets introduced to opera via a private recital from Jette Parker Young Artist Simon Shibambu or gets to meet the Director of Opera, Oliver Mears as part of a tour of Covent Garden. But seeing them experience Shibambu's singing close to, the first time any had heard an opera singer, was proof of the power of the medium, if you only give it a chance. And the group's reaction to their experience of Puccini's Tosca (in the recent outing of the Jonathan Kent production) was remarkable in the way that their varied reactions reflected how young people see the piece's drama (Tosca herself did not come out of it well).

But the film also challenges our perceptions of young people, and our assumptions about what they think and how they will react.

The eight young people will be going back to the opera this Summer during Opera Holland Park's 2018 season, which includes a schools matinee of La traviata .Ahead of the matinee, OHP is also offering workshops for students, CPD workshops for teachers and resource packs, full information from OHP's website.

Delightful evening with a dark backdrop: Handel's Xerxes from ETO

Andrew Slater, Julia Riley - Handel Xerxes - English Touring Opera - ® Richard Hubert Smith

Handel Xerxes; Julia Riley, Laura Mitchell, Galina Averina, Clint van der Linde, Carolyn Dobbin dir: James Conway, cond: Jonathan Peter Kenny; English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Apr 13 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Well sung, great ensemble acting and tremendous fun

Galina Averina, Laura Mitchell - Handel Xerxes
English Touring Opera - ® Richard Hubert Smith

English Touring Opera’s Autumn 2016 season started off with a revival of its 2011 production of Handel’s Xerxes at the Hackney Empire on 9 October 2016. Some of the cast were new and others were revisiting their roles from five years ago and they were using Nicholas Hytner’s 1985 translation for ENO, so there was a seasoned quality to this opening night. James Conway directed, with designs by Sarah Bacon, and Jonathan Peter Kenny conducted the Old Street Band with Julia Riley, Laura Mitchell, Galina Averina, Clint van der Linde, Andrew Slater, Carolyn Dobbin and Peter Brathwaite.

The set is simple and stylish, with a Nissen hut shown outside and inside, 1940s costumes and ubiquitous cigarettes and pipes. Apart from the back of a plane, it all looked very portable for the tours to a dozen venues. Much versatility is expected of the singers who are playing multiple roles on the tour which consists of three operas and a St John Passion.

This is a delightful production of what is in many ways one of Handel’s sunniest operas – all those love triangles that work out happily in the end.

A fascinating, yet flawed work - Brecht and Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny

Christine Rice and Willard W. White in
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny © ROH.Clive Barda 2015

Brecht and Weill, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny); Von Otter, Hoare, White, Rice, Streit, dir: Fulljames, cond: Wigglesworth; Royal Opera House
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 1 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Strong performance of Weill and Brecht's flawed yet fascinating full-length opera

Last night (1 April 2015) we caught up with the Covent Garden's new (and first) production of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's only three-act opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) in the production directed by John Fulljames, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth with Anne Sofie von Otter as Begbick, Peter Hoare as Fatty, Willard W. White as Trinity Moses, Christine Rice as Jenny, Kurt Streit as Jimmy McIntyre, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Jack O'Brien, Darren Jeffery as Bank Account Bill, Neal Davies as Alaska Wolf Joe, with Anna Burford, Lauren Fagan, Anush Hovhannisyan, Stephanie Marshall, Meeta Raval, Harriet Williams, Robert Clark, Hubert Francis and Paterson Joseph. Set designs were by Es Devlin, with costumes by Christina Cunningham, lighting by Bruno Poet, video by Finn Ross and choreography by Arthur Pita.

Peter Hoare, Anne Sofie Von Otter and Willard W. White
© ROH.Clive Barda 2015

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny comes at an interesting and important juncture in the development of Weill and Brecht's collaboration. In 1927 they produced the Mahagonny Songspiel, a sequence of songs with linking instrumental (intended for performance by opera singers) which after one performance they decided to work into a full scale opera. During the planning of Mahagonny they were approached about a version of The Beggars Opera and the success of the result, Der Dreigroschenoper, came in the middle of the work for Mahagonny meaning that its development was somewhat waylaid by the music theatre piece.

Mahagonny is understood to be a transition piece in the work of Bertolt Brecht as he came to more of an understanding of Communism during the development of the work. In fact he produced a third version of the libretto which he published, which was far more aligned to his Marxist principals and helped to create the breach with Weill. But it is also a transition work for Weill as it comes at the time when he is experimenting with forms of musical theatre, ranging from full blown opera, through one-act opera to musical theatre and plays with music. It would be followed by the lehrstuck with Brecht and the collaboration with playwright Georg Kaiser, Der Silbersee which is neither play nor quite music theatre and needs both real actors and real singers.  It was the music-theatre works which came to prominence, partly because Weill's fleeing from Germany in 1933 put paid to any more large scale operatic works and any more experimenting but listening to the full version of Mahagonny certainly leaves you full of what ifs.

WNO 2015/16 season announcement

David Jones whose In Parenthesis forms basis
for a new opera for WNO
Credit: The Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum;
The Estate of David Jones

Prior to the first night of their new production of Rossini's Mose in Egitto (see my review) Welsh National Opera announced details of its 2015/16 season, a season, a season which culminates in the company's 70th birthday celebrations.  The season encompasses further exploration of bel canto, new productions of core-repertoire, revivals, two new commissions (including one based on David Jones In Parenthesis) and a musical, nine works in all in three seasons; quite a feat of imagination and financial conjuring in the present economic climate. The Autumn 2015 season is entitled Music and Madness, and David Pountney in his introduction commented how apt this was as you had to be mad to make music in the current financial situation.

The 2015/16 season continues a number of themes which Pountney has introduced. The three seasons (Autumn, Spring, Summer) are each themed, and new productions in the same season often share the same scenic environment. The current trio of operas, Rossini's Mose in Egitto and Guillaume Tell and Bizet's Carmenm might seem a stretch on paper especially as they are being toured. But Carmen is a revival and the two Rossini operas share the same scenic environment, though their actual look is very different; a challenge to the designer, but a rewarding one.

Other themes pursued in 2015/16 include the exploration of bel canto, building on the performances of Rossini this year and Donizetti last year, and the development of new repertoire.

Aikainen: Time for fun and games at the Arcola

Miika Hyytiäinen
 photo credit Ulf Buschleb

Miika Hyytiäinen Aikainen; Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Sep 2 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Delightful and playful experimental opera from young Finnish composer

'Aikainen' (Finnish for early/ about time) was a short experimental opera composed by Finnish Miika Hyytiäinen (1982-) and directed by Jaakko Nousiainen. Performed on Tuesday 2nd September as part of the Grimeborn alternative opera festival held at the Arcola Theatre in the heart of the East End of London.

Composer Hyytiäinen has just finished a composition diploma in Experimental Music Theatre at the University of Arts, Berlin and is starting a PhD at Sibelius Academy, Helsinki this year. Originally he studied mathematics – which has remained with him as a love of prime numbers, which are scattered throughout 'Aikainen'. He has a quirky love of technology too, his 2012 opera “Omnivore” was written for mobile phone.

Premiered in Berlin earlier this year 'Aikainen' continues this innovation. It included 3D-printed ocarinas, whose shape was based on the shape swept by the movement of a pendulum, a 3D graphical score, which dominated the stage in the shape of a Möbius strip, and a 3D video of three ladies singing (described as the three Wagnerian “norms” of virgin, mother and witch). Alongside this were other videos by Alicja Sowiar featuring fashion shows, digital clocks counting up (or down) numbers, old Amstrad-style computer games, and cartoons, plus drawings made by an artist in Berlin to represent time which were transformed into theatre by the performers and members of the audience.

Walton's Facade - Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King

Walton's Facade

Walton Facade, Maxwell Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King; Melos Sinfonia, Helios Chamber Opera, dir: Ella Marchment, cond: Oliver Zeffman; Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 5 2014
Star rating: 3.5
Intriguing combination of music theatre pieces exploring madness and shell-shock

Last year Helios Chamber Opera and Melos Sinfonia put together an imaginative programme, The Bear Goes Walkabout, which combined Walton's The Bear with two new one-act operas. They return this summer with another intriguing combination, the double bill of Walton's Facade and Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King which they are performing at Grimeborn, in Kingston upon Thames and in St Petersburg. Directed by Ella Marchment (artistic director of Helios Chamber Opera) and conducted by Oliver Zeffman (founder of Melos Sinfonia), the performers included reciters Charmian Bedford and Danny Standing and Samuel Pantcheff as the baritone soloist in the Maxwell Davies. We caught the double bill's first night at the Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival on 5 September 2014.

Both pieces were designed by designed by Holly Piggott, with choreography by Joseph Toonga, video by Benjamin Fox and lighting by Christopher Nairne. Marchment had set them both in the context of a post First World War hospital for the shell-shocked and used each work as a way of exploring madness.

The Walton was performed by inmates from the hospital and preceded by them assembling, to a sound-track which combined spoken passages from WW1 letters with evocative sounds of shells and such. The various movements of the Walton formed a kaleidoscopic exploration of random thoughts and feelings, emphasises by the projected visuals which either showed scenes from WW1 trenches or nostalgic images of pre-war garden parties and children's boat trips. The order of the movements in the Walton had been altered; in fact the traditional order was fixed quite late. And included in the mix were movements from Facade II, movements from the original which Walton revived in the 1970's; these are sparer and darker and added a more threatening element to the mix.

La Fanciulla del West at Opera Holland Park

Susannah Glanville as Minnie &
Jeff Gwaltney as Dick Johnson
La fanciulla del West
Photo Fritz Curzon

Puccini La Fanciulla del West: Susannah Glanville, Jeff Gwaltney, Simon Thorpe, Stuart Straford: Opera Holland Park
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jun 03 2014
Star rating: 3.5
1950's Las Vegas setting for new production of Puccini's Wild West opera

Opera Holland Park's 2014 season opened last night (3 June 2014) with Stephen Barlow's new production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, with Susannah Glanville as Minnie, Jeff Gwaltney as Dick Johnson, Simon Thorpe as Jack Rance, with Neal Cooper as Nick, Nicholas Garrett as Sonora, Graeme Broadbent as Ashby, Tom Stoddart as Billy Jackrabbit and Laura Woods as Wowkle. Stuart Stratford conducted with the City of London Sinfonia in the pit.

Puccini's Wild West opera opened to great acclaim in 1910 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with a cast including Emmy Destinn, Enrico Caruso and Pasquale Amato. The opera has, however, failed to find a place in opera houses in the way that Puccini's other major operas have. Covent Garden's 1977 production (premiered with Carole Neblett, Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes) brought the opera to the fore and it has been performed by Opera North, Opera Holland Park and Grange Park Opera. But in the run up to this new Opera Holland Park production (they last performed it in 2004), lots of people commented how unusual the opera was and how they had not heard it before.

The piece needs a large cast (17 named roles) and is the most through-composed of Puccini's operas. There are big tunes, but hardly any of the arias and duets are excerptable, though score is one of Puccini's most sophisticated and thoughtful. The role of Minnie requires a soprano who can combine heft and flexibility, ideally rather more of a spinto than say Tosca. But perhaps the biggest problem lies in the fact that Puccini and his librettists have created their own dramatic world. These are not real gold rush-types, they are far to emotional and sentimental for that and sentiment runs strongly through the opera. But if you take it on its own terms, take it seriously then the opera works very well and can pack a real punch.

When a Man Knows - now on Vimeo

My opera, When A Man Knows, which was staged by FifteenB at the Bridewell Theatre in 2011, directed by Ian Caddy and conducted by David Roblou, is now on Vimeo. The one-act opera is based on the play by Alan Richardson, described as a modern day Jacobean revenge tragedy. Starring soprano Zoe South and baritone Dario Dugandzic, the opera was described by Opera Magazine as 'chilling' and 'disturbing'.

'I liked it too. Hugill is clearly a composer of discernment, imagination, and drive, and his score encompassed many a gem, including an arioso, fearsome duet with the Man, as the Woman spells out her plan of revenge, with torrid passages for violin, cello and piano, and a cliff-hanger at the end. At the sound of a banging door the woman departs. All we hear is the dripping tap. Silence. Then chorus: ‘Will she be back ?’ - Jill Barlow: First Performances (2011). Tempo, Volume 65, Issue 258, October 2011 pp 45-58 http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=8406640

The video was recorded live on 1 April 2011; to see the opera, simply go to Vimeo

Popup Opera - Don Pasquale

Popup Opera's speciality is touring small scale opera productions to unusual venues, tailoring the production to the venue. I caught their new production of Donizetti's comic opera Don Pasquale in the relatively intimate confines of the upstairs room at the Sun Tavern in Covent Garden. Directed by Darren Royston with a cast that included Raul Baglietto as Don Pasquale, Ricardo Panela as Doctor Malatesta, Ciff Zammit Stevens as Ernesto and Clementine Lovell as Norina, the lively production filled the relatively small acting space, accompanied by James Henshaw on piano. Sung in Italian, with English subtitles, the results were vividly communicative.

Old Friends, New Friends

I see from the 2012-13 season announcements that James Fulljames's production of Street Scene is making its way to Barcelona, where it will be presented at the Liceu. The Liceu has also announced a new production of Tales of Hoffmann directed by Laurent Pelly, with Natalie Dessay and Vittorio Grigolo, interesting to see Grigolo moving into heavier territory already.

Over in Paris, Laurent Pelly's much travelled production of La Fille du Regiment makes its appearance at the Opera de Paris (with Dessay and Florez of course). Emma Bell is doing the Countess in a revival of Le Nozze di Figaro (with Camilla Tilling, Anna Grevelius and Marie McLaughlin), good to see that with all the Wagner work she's been doing that Mozart is still firmly in the frame as well. Violetta Urmana is appearing in Pier Luigi Pizzi's new production of La Gioconda in May 2013, now that certainly sounds like something worth travelling to Paris for. Also in May, Laurent Pelly's production of Giulio Cesare returns with Christophe Dumaux and Lawrence Zazzo.  And there's a complete Ring Cycle in June!

Further ahead, Opera Magazine reports that we can look forward to a new Don Giovanni in 2014. Sarah Connolly is doing Agrippina at the Liceu in November 2013. And in October, Jacques Imbrailo sings his first Pelleas in Essen, definitely worth travelling to Essen for.

From this month's Opera Magazine I see that Buxton are doing Saint-Saens La Princesse Jaune next year, conducted by Stephen Barlow; hurrah for a Saint-Saens revival and Henry VIII anyone?

And at Glyndebourne in 2015, Sally Matthews is due to sing Constanze, in  Die Entfuhrung with Robin Ticciati conducting.  Jonas Kaufmann will be doing his first Walther in a staged performance of Die Meistersinger at the Berlin Staatsoper, but not until 2014. Robert Lepage is due to be back at the Met in 2017 (!) for Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin is recording all seven mature Mozart operas for DG (hurrah), with Rolando Villazon as Don Ottavio, Ferrando and Tito. Well Villazon as Tito certainly, but as Don Ottavio and Ferrando?

From 'When a Man Knows'

'What's Your Problem' - Second in the extracts from 'When a Man Knows' on YouTube. 

The Man (Dario Dugandzic, baritone) first seen handcuffed and chained in the deserted warehouse. Instrumental ensemble conducted by David Roblou, production directed by Ian Caddy, lighting by Matt Haskins. Recorded live at Bridewell Theatre, London, 1st April 2011

More Peru

Whilst we are in a Peruvian mood, it is also worth noting that the other opera based on the same story as La Perichole is making its UK debut this summer. Dorset Opera are performing La Carosse du Saint Sacrement by Lord Berners, his only opera. They are giving the UK stage premiere of the opera in a double bill with Puccini's Suor Angelica. Performed in Paris in 1923, Berners' comic opera has never been staged in Britain. Performances take place on 26 and 28 July at Bryanston School. The group will also be staging Verdi's Il Trovatore.

ENO new season

So ENO have announced their 2012/13 season. All in all it is an interesting programme and one which covers a few areas that other major companies do not. That said, there are a few gaps. No Wagner for a start. Evidently, at the press conference, John Berry talked about the expense of Wagner and the difficulty of getting singers to perform him in English. This probably chimes in with another gap in the programme, the absence of the some of the senior ranks of UK singers. There are quite a few names (Andrew Shore, Susan Bickley, Matthew Best, Anthony Michaels Moore, Sarah Connolly), but there are many more who are not here and quite a few of those are the ones who might have sung Wagner. It is a shame that some way of staging Phyllida Lloyd's complete Ring cycle. It wasn't one which I like very much, but having invested so much into it surely some way could have been found...

Another area lacking in this season is the presence of untried film directors in the hot seat. And for this, hurrah.

The highlight of the season is something, frankly, that I never expected to see - Vaughan Williams Pilgrims Progress. This is to receive its first fully professional UK staging since the 1950's. It was staged very successfully by the RNCM and there have been two semi-stagings of the work. ENO are entrusting the direction to the Japanese director Yoshi Oida, so don't expect a traditional production. A young cast includes Roland Wood in the title role, with Benedict Nelson as the Evangelist conducted by Martin Brabbins.

Another new production is Handel's Julius Caesar, directed by Michael Keegan-Dolan, artistic director of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre; the production will be a co-production with Fabulous Beast so expect something rich and strange. Lawrence Zazzo will be taking the title role with Anna Christy as Cleopatra, Patricia Barden as Cornelia and Tim Mead as Tolomeo. Christan Curnyn conducts.

Still in the baroque, Charpentier's Medea makes a welcome appearance with Sarah Connolly in the title role and Jeffrey Francis as Jason; David McVicar directs.

Rupert Goold returns with another new production, Berg's Wozzeck. Though I do hope that his Turandot makes a return as well sometime. Still in the earlier 20th century Richard Jones is doing a new production of Martinu's Julietta with Peter Hoare, Andrew Shore and Susan Bickley, conducted by Edward Gardner. It is an opera that I don't know well, so am curious.

Two new productions are being bought in. Cailixto Bieito's  Carmen which has already got something of a track record. At the Coliseum the title role will be taken by the Roumanian mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose (couldn't a British singer be found?). The last Carmen does not seem to have lasted to this one is probably intended to be disposable as well. Peter Konwitschny will be working at the Coliseum for the first time, bringing his production of La Traviata. A rather radical re-working which strips the production down and plays without an interval. The last 2 Traviatas both made a poor showing, so here's hoping!

The final 2 new productions are contemporary. Michel Van der Aa makes a welcome appearance in the UK with a new opera call Sunken Garden a collaboration with author David Mitchell. This is an ENO co-commission and receives its premiere at the Barbican. And no, I'm not going to mention the 3-D glasses.

The final new production is the most forgettable, but its the one which has had everybody salivating. A new Philip Glass opera based on a sensational book about Walt Disney's final days. Christopher Purves takes the title role and the piece will be directed by Phelim McDermott and his company, Improbably, who were responsible for Satyagraha.

Of the revivals, one stands out. Deborah Warner's Death in Venice returns with John Graham-Hall finally getting a chance at the title role having garnered good reviews when the production went to Italy.

Of the other revivals we have what is promised to be the last of the Nicholas Hyntner Magic Flute, Jonathan Miller's Mikado, Jonathan Miller's Barber of Seville and Jonathan Miller's La Boheme. The Barber is notable for having Benedict Nelson as Figaro, Lucy Crowe as Rosina, Andrew Kennedy as Count Almaviva and Andrew Shore as Doctore Bartolo - a rather wonderful cast.

Evidently 80% of the cast are UK based and the inclusion of major works by Britten, Handel and RVW does give the season an English feel. But, the continued emphasis on non-UK composers for high profile commissions means that the whole season comes over as being not very English National. Certainly having Glass and Van der Aa gives us something of a buzz, but couldn't that have been achieved with more of a UK vein.