October 2022
Diana Damrau graces our cover this month, in performance as Countess Madeleine in Capriccio at the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Iván Fischer prepares to conduct The Turn of the Screw in his Vicenza Opera Festival and talks to Yehuda Shapiro about the different ways of approaching the piece.
The writer Colm Tóibín discusses James Joyce, Henry James, libretto writing and his opera life with John Allison.
Birgit Nilsson is remembered every summer in Västra Karup, the Swedish village where she grew up, with concerts, masterclasses and recitals. James Imam finds out more.
Details of all this month’s features and of reviews from around the world can be found on our website. [Click here] to read more.
Disc of the month is Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel on Blu-ray, from Opéra de Lyon, featuring Nina Minasyan as the Queen of Shemakha, Andrey Popov as the Astrologer and Dmitry Ulyanov as Tsar Dodon, directed by Barrie Kosky with the Orchestre et Choeurs de l’Opéra National de Lyon conducted by Daniele Rustioni.
For the record: the Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason chooses as a personal favourite Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, conducted by the composer, with the English Chamber Orchestra and Janet Baker as Lucretia.
Reviews this month include: the Poulenc double bill of La Voix humaine and Les Mamelles de Tirésias at Glyndebourne, Candide at Scottish Opera, Dalia at Garsington Opera, HMS Pinafore at Opera Holland Park, the new Ring cycle at Bayreuth, La Gioconda at La Scala, Madama Butterfly and Giordano’s Siberia at Bregenz, the premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings in St Louis, Pelléas et Mélisande in Tokyo, Le Comte Ory, Otello and La gazzetta in Pesaro.
October summary
Colm Tóibín discussing libretto writing with John Allison
Birgit Nilsson remembered in her Swedish birthplace
The conductor Iván Fischer discusses his plans for the Vicenza Opera Festival with Yehuda Shapiro
Vaughan Williams’s operas investigated by Christopher Webber, looking beyond the composer’s tweedy ‘Uncle Ralph’ image
Matthew Epstein, a man of many roles, from artistic director to dramaturg, in conversation with Roger Pines
Terry Jenkins on the history of the John Lewis Opera Group
The composer Daníel Bjanarson on his favourite recording: The Rape of Lucretia, conducted by Benjamin Britten in 1970
Order This Issue Subscribe
