P.
OPERA.
Headliners of the Year:
Le Corsaire at
The Royal Opera House, London.
One
of the most skittish ballets in the Kirov's 19th century repertory - a
burlesque mix of Byron and Ali Baba, wedged together with some cracking
classical dance...Maria
Padilla at The Opera House, Buxton
Elliott
Carter Quartets...Dawn
Upshaw...Los
Angeles Philharmonic...Carmen
at
The New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-Under-Lyme...
P.57. SCOTTISH OPERA: The praise is ringing from the rooftops of Edinburgh - Scottish Opera’s Ring Cycle is the triumph of the Festival. "Bold, deft, vast organic power," wrote one reviewer; "a singularly powerful moving force," considered another. Yet for all the glory, the future of the company remains in doubt, after the opera took an effective cut in its public funding in the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) budget in this year.
P.58. PAVAROTTI: Across a spacious living room that seems to float 23 blue-sky storeys above Central Park South, Luciano Pavarotti is slumped at his oversized desk like a corpulent Christ. Arms theatrically cantilevered over high-backed chairs on either side of his frame, his neck and shoulders draped in a paisley Hermes scarf that complements his lime-green shirt, he appears hunkered down, a mountain of a man wedged into place.
P.61.
VOIGHT: Voight Gets
23-Minute Ovation As 'Isolde'Runners in the Vienna Marathon passed the State
Opera House on the Ringstrasse at midday Sunday. A few hours later, Deborah
Voigt had amarathon of her own inside the house — singing her first staged
performance as the heroine of Wagner's epic "Tristan und Isolde." Sunday
night's performance marked a triumph for the 42-year-old soprano from
Illinois, who boosted herself into the ranks of the finest Wagner
interpreters with heft of voice and beauty of tone throughout the register.
P.62. Salvatore Sciarrino: Chamber Music"
Sciarrino: Piano Trio No. 2. Le voci
sottovetro. Tre notturni
brillanti. Infinito
nero.
New
Juilliard Ensemble.
Joel Sachs (conductor). Paul Recital Hall, Juilliard School of Music, New
York City. Presented under the auspic
P.63.
Violeta Urmana: She is stronger than
destiny. Violeta Urmana is hitting the high notes, literally. One of the
world's most exciting singers - for whom alone a trip to Covent Garden's
La Forza del Destino is worth the ticket price - she's putting her
reputation as one of the world's most sought-after opera singers on the
line. Best known as a dark-toned mezzo-soprano, she has recently reinvented
herself as a bright-toned soprano soaring to stratospheric heights.
P.65.
Mazeppa One of the great
pillars of the Mariinsky repertoire, Tchaikovsky’s soaring Mazeppa depicts
the legendary 17th-century Ukrainian separatist in both his political and
romantic exploits. Taking inspiration from Pushkin’s epic poem Poltava, the
opera follows the enigmatic yet aging military leader Mazeppa as he falls in
love with Maria, the young daughter of Kochubey, a Cossack judge. Denied the
judge’s blessing to marry, Mazeppa and Maria decide to elope, an action that
compels Kochubey to reveal Mazeppa’s secret revolutionary plans—a plot to
turn the Ukraine into an independent state—to Tsar Peter the Great.
P.67.
GERGIEV: Valery Gergiev spends about
250 days a year with the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet. He has been Principal
Guest Conductor with the Metropolitan Opera since 1997, Principal Conductor
of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (one of his first openings in the West), and
has worked with most of the world’s leading orchestras. He works
increasingly with the Wiener Philharmoniker and has set up numerous
festivals, including Peace to the Caucasus, the Mikkeli in Finland, The Red
Sea in Eilat, The Kirov-Philharmonia in London, The Rotterdam
Philharmonic-Gergiev Festival, and The White Nights in St. Petersburg.