May 2023
Welcome to our May issue, previewing the summer festivals. Our cover shows Tómas Tómasson as Napoleon in the new production of War and Peace at the Bayerische Staatsoper, reviewed by the Editor and due to return during this summer’s Munich Opera Festival.
Our features include an interview with Pierre Audi on Aix-en-Provence and a look at Garsington Opera’s new building plans. Other featured festivals are Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Bampton Classical Opera, Savonlinna Opera Festival and Spoleto’s Festival of Two Worlds.
Along with a Festivals Spotlight and a Festivals Directory we have:
Pierre Audi in conversation with John Allison about his plans for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
Patricia Racette talking to George Loomis as she prepares to direct Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah at St Louis, an opera in which she sang the title role when she was still an undergraduate
Nicholas Kenyon on Salieri’s La fiera di Venezia, to be performed by Bampton Classical Opera in July
Rupert Christiansen on Garsington Opera’s bold ambitions for a new Arts Hub at their home in the Chiltern Hills
The Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen telling Sarah Noble about her opera A Room of One’s Own, to be performed at the Savonlinna Festival this summer
The legacy of the conductor Thomas Schippers, in particular at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, assessed by Nancy Spada
Disc of the Month is Mozart’s Die verstellte Gärtnerin, with Sandrine Piau and Julian Prégardien, and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Andrew Parrott.
The director Bruno Ravella chooses the 1976 recording of La traviata as a personal favourite, with Ileana Cotrubas and Plácido Domingo, conducted by Carlos Kleiber
Reviews include: Il trittico at Scottish Opera, The Dead City at English National Opera, Turandot at Covent Garden, The Magic Flute at Welsh National Opera, Lohengrin at the Met, Doktor Faust in Florence, War and Peace in Munich, Giulio Cesare in Amsterdam, Adriana Lecouvreur in Sydney, Yevgeny Onegin in Brussels, Salome in Vienna, La sonnambula in Düsseldorf, Madama Butterfly in Reykjavik
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