January 2023
Our cover shows Heather Lowe as Phoebe in the recent production of The Yeomen of the Guard at English National Opera, and inside the Editor reviews and assesses the effects of the ill-thought-through and highly damaging Arts Council cuts to ENO, as well as to the Glyndebourne Tour and Welsh National Opera.
The International Opera Awards were held in Madrid on November 28 and we announce the details, including the Readers’ Award, which went to the Samoan tenor Pene Pati, and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Dame Janet Baker.
Malin Byström talks to Hugh Canning about her roles in operas by Strauss, Gounod, Massenet, Mozart, Rossini and Verdi – and about Strauss’s Salome as she prepares to sing the role in Vienna.
Brian Robins looks at the extraordinary range of operas based on the works of Ovid and his epic poem Metamorphoses in particular.
The bass Giorgio Tozzi was born 100 years ago and we publish his recollections of how he, an Italian American, came to perform the quintessentially German role of Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Our Disc of the Month is Boris Goudenow by Johann Mattheson, with Olivier Gourdy as Boris, Yevhen Rakhmanin as Tsar Theodorus, Streten Manojlović as Fedro Romanov and Andrea Marchiol conducting Theresia (CPO).
Reviews this month include: The Yeomen of the Guard at English National Opera, Alcina at Covent Garden, Orfeo ed Euridice at Opera North and Chelsea Opera Group, a new Ring cycle in Berlin, From the House of the Dead and the Glagolitic Mass in Brno, La Juive in Geneva, Salome and Lakmé in Paris, The Wreckers in Houston, The Cunning Little Vixen in Vienna, Der Rosenkavalier in Brussels, Katya Kabanová in Copenhagen, The Hours in New York, Fedora in Milan, Königskinder in Amsterdam.
January Summary:
Two page Editorial on the Arts Council England’s punitive funding cuts
The 2022 International Opera awards winners
The soprano Malin Byström in conversation with Hugh Canning
Brian Robins on the far-reaching influence of the poet Ovid
Recollections from the bass Giorgio Tozzi on learning and performing the role of Hans Sachs
Fergus Sheil of Irish National Opera on Guillaume Tell, a favourite recording
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