Monte-Carlo Opera presents an interesting combination of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi on the same bill. Each opera represents a different side of Italy – the fire and passion of Sicily, and the elegance and spirituality of the city of Florence. This new production is staged by German director Grischa Asagaroff.

Italian composer Pietro Mascagni is probably best known for his role in introducing the concept of verismo to the world of opera in the latter part of the 19th century. Already popular in theatre, verismo reflected the lives and passions, violence and honour of everyday people – as opposed to the somewhat distant existences of royalty and the gods – and it accentuated the importance of emotion over beautiful sound.

In 1888 Mascagni was just about to submit his recently completed opera, Guglielmo Ratcliff, to a competition held by music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno, but he then learned that his wife had already submitted his 1880 one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana. This opera was the overwhelming winner of the competition.

Cavalleria Rusticana was based on a Sicilian melodrama by Giovanni Verga. Set to a libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, against the backdrop of the religious celebration of Easter, it tells a story of love, betrayal, and revenge. The soldier Turiddu, from a humble working-class community of Sicily, returns from military service, to find that his fiancée Lola has married Alfio, a well-to-do wagon owner and driver. In an act of revenge, Turiddu seduces Santuzza, a peasant girl, and Lola becomes so jealous that she starts an adulterous affair with Turiddu. Santuzza publicly betrays the pair, Alfio challenges Turiddu to a duel, and Turiddu pays for his actions with his life.

Although Cavalleria Rusticana opened to a half-empty house at the Teatro Costanzi, Rome, on May 17th, 1890, it was rapturously received, and has retained its popularity ever since, often being performed in tandem with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. It’s probably best known for the beautiful intermezzo between the opera’s two scenes.

Uruguayan soprano Maria José Siri, interpreter of the most famous Verdian and Puccini heroines, with a repertoire ranging from bel canto to verismo, sings the role of Santuzza. Lola is sung by Italian mezzo-soprano, Annunziata Vestri, known for her most recent TV appearances in Rossini’s Le barbier de Séville, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Rossini’s La Cenerentola. The role of Turiddu is sung by Azerbaijani tenor Yusif Eyvazov, known for what the LA Times describes as his “metallic, stentorian and markedly Italianate” voice. Hungarian bass Peter Kalman, highly regarded for his character portrayals in the Italian buffo tradition, is Alfio.

Giacomo Puccini wrote the one-act opera Gianni Schicchi during 1917 and 1918 as the third part of his his triptych Il trittico, the other operas being Il tabarro (The Cloak) and Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica). With a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, it is set in 1299 in the mediaeval city of Florence, and is based on an episode from Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which Gianni Schicchi (an actual Florentine) is consigned to the eighth circle of hell with other forgers and cheats, for his duplicity.

The opera tells of Gianni Schicchi who was brought in, after the death of Buoso Donati (also an actual Florentine), by the greedy relatives of the deceased man to make a counterfeit will, because they had been disinherited. Schicchi, however, managed to bequeath most of Donati ’s fortune to himself, while the relatives are forced to sit by silently. At the end of the opera, as Scicchi arranges for the young lovers, Lauretta (Schicchi’s daughter) and Rinuccio (Zita’s nephew), to receive their share of the inheritance, he turns to the audience and tells them that he concocted his scheme so that even if Dante has condemned him to hell, he hopes the audience will forgive him in light of “extenuating circumstances”.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, part of the Donatis’ great house, so coveted in the opera, still stands in Florence today, a crumbling tower on the Via del Corso, very near the house where Dante was born in 1265.

Gianni Schicchi, Puccini’s only comic opera, is possibly best known for the soprano aria O mio babbino caro (Oh My Dear Father) sung by Lauretta to Schicchi. The opera was premiered by the Metropolitan Opera in New York on14th December, 1918.

The role of Gianni Schicci will be taken by Italian baritone Nicola Alaimo, soon to be seen in the title role in Opera Rara’s 1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Lauretta is sung by Armenian soprano Nina Minasyan and Rinuccio by Uruguayan tenor Edgardo Rocha, admired for his bel canto repertoire and considered one of its most important exponents. Zita, Buoso Donati’s cousin, is sung by Italian mezzo-soprano Elena Zilio.

Also in the cast are Enrico Casari, Giovanni Romeo, Giovanni Furlanetto, Eugenio di Lieto, Rosa Bove, Mattio Peirone, Fabrice Alibert, Caterina Di Tonno, Egon Rostagni, Przemyslaw Baranek and Luca Vianello.

Speranza Scappuzzi, who in 2022 became the first Italian woman to conduct at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, leads the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Choir of the Monte-Carlo Opera and the Rainier III Academy of Music in the double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana and Gianni Schicchi in four performances, between February 23 and 29 at the Monte-Carlo Opera. Further information, and details of ticketing can be found on the Monte-Carlo Opera website.

Information sourced from:
Cavalleria Rusticana:
Monte-Carlo Opera programme notes
Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encylopaedia Britannica
Opera Australia programme notes
Gianni Schicchi:
Monte-Carlo Opera programme notes
Encyclopaedia Britannica

A version of this article first appeared in Riviera Buzz

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This month, the National Ballet of Japan presents Peter Darrell’s interpretation of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, regarded as one of the finest of Darrell’s long narrative works. First staged by the Japanese company in 2015, the ballet was praised for the creative way in which it was interpreted.

Darrell, founder Director of Scottish Ballet in 1969, was said to be one of the most prolific choreographers of his generation, having created a repertoire of works dealing with subjects not normally dealt with in ballet. This particular ballet, representing his unique approach to story-telling, was first performed by Scottish Theatre Ballet in 1972. It was subsequently staged by the American Ballet Theatre, the ballet companies of the National Theatre of Belgrade and the National Theatre of Prague, the Australian Ballet, Tokyo’s Asami Maki Ballet Company and Hong Kong Ballet.

The German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach became world famous for his operettas during his lifetime – lightweight comedies which featured many popular melodies which have retained their popularity even today. He nevertheless longed to become well known for more serious operas, and his hope was that Les Contes d’Hoffmann – his opéra fantastique which he began writing in 1877 – would achieve this ambition. As it happened, the opera did, but Offenbach died in 1880 while the production was still in rehearsal. The premiere took place at the Opéra-Comique on 10th February, 1881.

Les Contes d’Hoffmann was written as a tribute to the German Romantic author, composer and poet, E T A Hoffmann, who was known for his stories in which supernatural and sinister characters moved in and out of men’s lives. It was based on a play by Jules Barbier (who wrote the original libretto) and Michel Carré, and takes the form of a sequence of three short stories, telling of a fruitless search for love, with the real life Hoffmann as its main character.

In the Prologue, Hoffmann is waiting in a tavern for his lover, prima donna La Stella. Accompanied by Lindorff, the devil in disguise, he is encouraged to talk of his previous loves – all of whom were conjured up by the devil. First there was Olympia – a mechanical doll, Olympia, whom Hoffmann believed to be human after donning a pair of glasses given to him by the devil disguised as Spalanzani. Then there was Antonia who was convinced by Dr Miracle (actually the devil) that she was a ballerina, and who danced to her death. Lastly there was the courtesan Giulietta in the salon of Dapertutto (again the devil), who seduces Hoffmann, but who vanishes with Dapertutto. Hoffmann finally falls into a deep sleep, La Stella returns, and disappointed in him, goes off with Lindorff. Hoffmann, realising what has happened, is left completely alone.

Opera directors, conductors and musicologists have all taken on the task of reimagining Hoffmann, and for 100 years after its creation, manuscripts of various parts of the opera continued to be found, and many different versions of the score have been assembled.

The staging of this production is overseen by Noriko Ohara OBE, ex-Principal Dancer of Scottish Ballet and Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Japan, and Kenn Burke, former Soloist of Scottish Ballet and Artistic Director of Dance at the Dance School of Scotland. Choreography and scenario are by Peter Darrell, and Offenbach’s music was arranged and orchestrated by John Lanchberry.

The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Paul Murphy, a member of Birmingham Royal Ballet since he joined the company in 1992. He was appointed Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Principal Conductor in 1997, is a regular conductor for the Royal Ballet, and has led many of the world’s finest ensembles.

Four performances of the National Ballet of Japan’s production of The Tales of Hoffmann take place at the Opera Palace in Tokyo between 23rd and 25th February. Further information and tickets are available from the National Ballet of Japan website.

All photographs by Takashi Shikama

Information sourced from:

National Ballet of Japan programme notes

Encyclopaedia Britannica

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As part of Tamara Rojo’s inaugural season as Artistic Director at San Francisco Ballet, the Company stages British Icons – a tribute to two of the greatest names of British ballet, Sir Kenneth Macmillan and Sir Frederick Ashton. The works to be performed are Macmillan’s Song of the Earth and Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand.

Kenneth Macmillan – one of the most creative choreographers in the repertoire – choreographed Song of the Earth for John Cranko’s Stuttgart Ballet in 1965, shortly after he’d completed his magnificent interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. He selected Gustav Mahler’s symphonic work Das Lied von der Erde, written in 1908-1999, and first offered the proposal to The Royal Opera House, but this was rejected by the board in 1959 on the grounds that Mahler’s music was unsuitable for ballet. Macmillan then offered the proposal to the Stuttgart Ballet, a suggestion that was taken up by his old friend, John Cranko, who had directed the German company since 1961. The ballet premiered in Stuttgart in November 1965, and it wasn’t until May 1966 that the work was first performed by The Royal Ballet.

Mahler took the text of the songs from Chinese poems of the eighth century T’ang dynasty, which were freely translated into German – described as bitter-sweet reflections on human joys, concluding with a farewell to the world. In Macmillan’s own brief description of the ballet, it tells of “A man and a woman; death takes the man; they both return to her and at the end of the ballet, we find that in death there is the promise of renewal.” The choreography speaks for itself – the ballet is danced in simple tunics, tights and T shirts.

One of Frederick Ashton’s most passionate ballets, Marguerite and Armand was created in 1963 for Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, with original – and gorgeous – designs by Sir Cecil Beaton. Ashton – founding choreographer of The Royal Ballet – saw Vivien Leigh in a performance of Alexandre Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias in 1961, and was inspired to transpose the play into a ballet in 1963. Ashton was so impressed with the magic created onstage by Fonteyn and Nureyev – not long after his arrival in London – that he included aspects of their shared charisma and passion into the intensely emotional choreography, which he set to an orchestral arrangement of Liszt’s La lugubre gondola and his B minor piano sonata.

The ballet – one of the most beautiful in the repertoire – tells of the tragic affair between the courtesan Marguerite Gautier and her lover, Armand Duval, the story which was also the inspiration for Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La traviata. The ballet takes the form of a series of flashbacks, divided into five scenes – a Prologue, The Meeting, In the Countryside, The Insult and The Death of La Dame aux Camélias. The lovers meet at a gathering, fall in love, and despite Marguerite’s suffering from consumption, move to a home in the countryside. Their happiness is threatened when Armand’s father asks Marguerite to remove herself from his son’s life, because of her past. This she does, with much sadness, and the final – and very emotional – scene shows her dying in her lover’s arms.

San Francisco Ballet, with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra led by Music Director Martin West, stages seven performances of its British Icons program, from February 9 to February 15 at the War Memorial Opera House. Further information and details of ticket reservations can be found on the San Francisco Ballet website.

Information sourced from:

San Francisco Ballet program notes

Kenneth Macmillan

The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation

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Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas returns to Davies Symphony Hall this week to lead the San Francisco Symphony in his final subscription concert with the Orchestra. This series of concerts, featuring Mahler’s Symphony No 5, marks MTT’s 50-year partnership with the Symphony, and celebrates his amazing legacy in the City by the Bay.

Michael Tilson Thomas debuted with the Symphony on January 2nd 1974, giving three concerts of Mahler’s Symphony No 9, rapidly becoming the Orchestra’s favorite guest conductor, and by September 1995, he became Music Director of the Symphony. MTT held this role for 25 years, in what is regarded as one of the most productive artistic partnerships in the world of the orchestra. He became Music Director Laureate on his retirement as Music Director. In his aim to introduce classical music to as wide a national and international audience as possible, he has inspired countless music lovers, converts and scores of young people.

Michael Tilson Thomas is also Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony. Previous appointments include those with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Apart from leading some of the world’s major orchestras, he is an accomplished composer and has made a tremendous impact on the San Francisco Symphony and the entire classical music world as a conductor, composer, pianist, educator, mentor and visionary. 

During his tenure as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, MTT launched the Symphony’s in-house recording label, SFS Media, in 2001, winning 12 Grammy Awards. Included in these were seven for the Mahler cycle which encompassed all of Mahler’s symphonies and works for voice, chorus, and orchestra, and for which MTT won the Gramophone Artist of the Year award in 2005.  In 2004 he created the highly acclaimed multimedia education series Keeping Score, which aimed to make classical music more accessible to people of all ages and musical backgrounds.

Tilson Thomas pushed the boundaries of traditional orchestral performance through projects like his Festival of American Music and American Mavericks, expanded the symphonic repertoire and explored new concert formats. Included in the latter were memorable stagings of theatrical works such as Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Bernstein’s West Side Story and On the Town, and his tribute to his grandparents, The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater. He led a Pride concert at a time when when the civil liberties of LGBTQ+ people were under threat, and he inaugurated the Chase Center in an unforgettable performance with the Symphony and heavy metal band Metallica.

On television, MTT has appeared numerous times, including series for the BBC, PBS and the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts. He has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC’s Nightline, and PBS’s American Masters. Tilson Thomas is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, a member of the American Academies of Arts & Sciences and Arts & Letters, is a National Medal of Arts recipient, a Peabody Award winner, and a Kennedy Center Honoree.

A retrospective of Michael Tilson Thomas’ 25-year tenure as San Francisco Symphony music director, can be found on sfsymphony.org/MTT25 which includes audio recordings, videos, photographs and personal memories, sourced from the orchestra’s archives.

Most recently, Michael Tilson Thomas was honored with his own commemorative street in San Francisco, MTT Way, outside Davies Symphony Hall where he has conducted countless memorable concerts over the years.

MTT’s love of the music of Gustav Mahler is well known, and it’s therefore highly appropriate that this final subscription concert for the San Francisco Symphony should feature Mahler’s Symphony No 5 – a work which reflects the composer at his most joyous and life-affirming, even though he was going through a difficult time, struggling with his health and enduring artistic issues with his orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic. He began writing the Symphony in 1901 and completed it the following year. It premiered in Cologne on October 18th, 1904, but Mahler set about revising it not long afterwards. He conducted it nine more times over the following seven years, revising it each time. The final revision was in 1911, during the last months of his life. The Symphony No 5 is perhaps best known for the achingly beautiful fourth movement, the adagietto, which is often performed as a stand-alone piece, and which was most notably used in the final scenes of Visconti’s film Death in Venice.

Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony in Mahler’s Symphony No 5 at Davies Symphony Hall on January 25th, 26th and 27th. More information and ticket reservations are available on the San Francisco Symphony website.

Information sourced from:

San Francisco Symphony program notes

Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Rusalka, regarded as Antonin Dvořák’s most successful creation for stage, is the forthcoming production for Nice Opera. It stars Spanish-American soprano Vanessa Goikoetxea as the water nymph, Rusalka, with Korean tenor David Junghoon Kim taking role of the Prince. French mezzo-soprano Marion Lebégue reprises her role of the witch, Jezibaba, and direction, scenography and costumes are by Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Deloeuil, with collaboration on scenography Christophe Pitoiset.

In early 1900, Antonin Dvořák was looking for a libretto for a new work for the theatre – preferably something based on Czech history. He was given a text written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil which bore the title Rusalka, (and was based on the story of Ondine – also known as Undine) – a traditional European mythological figure who, according to folklore, gave her love to a human prince at the risk of losing her life should he be unfaithful to her. Kvapil deliberately placed his libretto in the context of a Czech scenario, and the setting of Dvořák’s opera was almost certainly dictated by his well-known love of nature. Dvořák’s Rusalka premiered at the National Theater in Prague in 1901, and although his music was celebrated internationally during his lifetime, Rusalka is the only one of his operas to gain a following outside Bohemia.

In Dvořák’s original staging of the opera, the water nymph Rusalka falls in love with a human Prince when he comes to swim in her lake. Despite the warnings of her father, Rusalka longs to leave her watery world and marry him. She consults the witch Ježibaba who agrees to turn her into a mortal, but tells her that if she joins the world of humans, she will lose her voice. Rusalka accepts this sacrifice, but is soon disappointed, for the Prince leaves her for a foreign Princess.

In this production of Rusalka, Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Deloeuil have brought the old Czech legend forward to the present day, in which the lake is represented by a swimming pool which becomes the focus of the moral dilemmas, broken promises and heartbreaking sacrifices.

Vanessa Goikoetxea is highly regarded in the world of opera as well as a concert performer. Recent operatic peformances include the title roles in Handel’s Alcina at Semperopera Dresden and Rusalka at Liceu de Barcelona, and she has appeared with the Basque National Orchestra and the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem. This current season will see Ms Goikoetxea take the role of Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at Opera Limoges and in the title role in Puccini’s Tosca at Fondazione del Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

David Junghoon Kim has, in recent seasons, made a number of notable debuts at London’s Royal Opera House, with Zürich Opera, Stuttgart Opera and at the Glyndebourne Festival. He has also sung the roles of Rodolfo in Verdi’s Luisa Millar for English National Opera, Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème for the Royal Opera, Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata for Cologne Opera, and he appeared in concert performances of Donizetti’s Lange de Nisida for Opera Rara.

Marion Lebégue made her debut at the Opéra National de Paris in 2016 as Ines in Verdi’s Il trovatore, going on to appear in Puccini’s Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi at the Opéra-Théâtre de Metz, Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová at the Opéra Grand Avignon, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena at the Opéra de Marseille, Massenet’s Manon at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and Bizet’s Carmen at Opéra de Nice, the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and the Bregenz Festival. She has also performed at numerous prestigious opera house across France.

Also in the cast are Vazgen Gazaryan as Vodnik the water goblin, Camille Schnoor as the foreign Princess, Clara Guillon, Valentine Lemercier and Marie Karall as three nymphs, Coline Dutilleul as the kitchen boy and Fabrice Alibert as the gamekeeper and hunter.

The Nice Philharmonic Orchestra and Nice Opera Choir are led by Elena Schwarz, who is developing regular partnerships with a range of orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Klangforum Wien, San Diego Symphony, Royal Philharmonique de Liège, Tasmanian Symphony and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

Three performances – in Czech with surtitles in French and English – take place at Nice Opera Côte d’Azur between January 26th and 30th.   This SUD Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region initiative is a co-production Régie culturelle régionale, Nice Côte d’Azur Opera, Grand Avignon Opera, Toulon Provence Méditerranée Opera and City of Marseille – Opera.

Tickets are available online. 

Information sourced from:

Nice Opera programme notes
Rusalka
Ancient Origins
PBS

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Cecilia Bartoli, Director of Monte-Carlo Opera, stars as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt), opposite Italian countertenor Carlo Vistoli who takes the title role. This new production for Monte-Carlo Opera is to be staged by Davide Livermore.

Giulio Cesare in Egitto, a dramma per musica in three acts, was written by George Friderick Handel to a libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, after a text by Giacomo Francesco Bussani.  It was the only opera that Handel composed for the 1723-24 season of his Royal Academy and was regarded as a masterpiece. It premiered at the King’s Theatre in Haymarket, London, on 20th February, 1724, where it was enthusiastically received, and ran for 13 performances.

It wasn’t performed at all during the 19th century, and was staged again, briefly, in Göttingen in 1922. After World War II, the opera made a comeback, but it was not until the 1970s that the score was reinstated in its entirety, with the original orchestration and tessitura. Largely due to the magnificence of the arias written for Cesare and Cleopatra, the work is now one of the most frequently performed Baroque operas.

The action, which tells the love story between Cesare and Cleopatra, takes place in Alexandria, Egypt, against a backdrop of war, political quarrels and domestic unrest. On the day after Giulio Cesare’s victory over Pompy, Cornelia, begs Cesare to spare her husband’s life, but Tolomeo – the king of Egypt and brother of Cleopatra – has him beheaded. Cornelia’s son, Sesto, is obsessed with killing Tolomeo as an act of vengeance, while Cleopatra uses her charms to win the support of Cesare and thus take sole control of the crown. Initially defeated by her brother’s army, she is rescued by Cesare. Tolomeo continues his pursuit of Cornelia, during which he is finally killed by Sesto, who, together with Cornelia, pledges his loyalty to Cesare and Cleopatra.

The general background of the story is historical, as are the characters – apart from Nireno, Cleopatra’s servant – but the details of Haym ’s story are fictional.

Cecilia Bartoli became Director of Monte-Carlo Opera in January 2023 and has been Artistic Director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival since 2012, a contract which has been extended to 2026. This is her third portrayal of a Handelian character, following her memorable portrayals of Ariodante and Alcina for Monte-Carlo Opera. She will, of course be returning to Salzburg in May, before which she will appear in recital in Monte-Carlo with Lang Lang, and with John Malkovich in Their Master’s Voice as part of the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo in April.

Following his performance of Tolomeo at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in May 2022, Forum Opera wrote: “Carlo Vistoli burst into pyrotechnic vocalizations and adorned his song with dazzling ornaments”. He most recently performed at the Wigmore Hall in London in a programme of Italian Arias and Duos with Hugh Cutting and Les Arts Florissantes, and following these performances as Giulio Cesare in Monte-Carlo, will return to Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in a debut performance in the title role of Handel’s Rinaldo.

Croation countertenor Max Emanuel Cenčić who takes the role of Tolomeo, was described by Opernwelt as being “… blessed with the finest countertenor voice of our day” in 2008, and ever since has continued to stand out amongst counter tenors with the purity of his tone and his passionate presentation. He will appear in Handel’s Flavio in Vienna, and make further appearances as Tolomeo in a staged concert in Versailles, and in Giulio Cesare in Egitto in Vienna.

Grammy Award-winning Sara Mingardo has collaborated with major orchestras and illustrious conductors the world over. Her concert repertoire ranges through Pergolesi and Respighi to Dvořák and Mahler, and her operatic repertoire includes works by Gluck, Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi, Rossini, Verdi, Mozart, Donizetti and Berlioz. Sara Mingardo’s next appearances include an orchestral concert featuring Mahler’s Symphony No 3 and Bach’s St John Passion in Zurich, Pamplona and Murcia.

Korean-American countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim who sings Sesto in this production, specialises in the Baroque, Mozart and contemporary music repertoire. He was one of OperaWire’s ‘Top 10 rising stars of 2019’ and was ‘Tipped for the top in 2020’ by Opera Now.

Also in the cast are Peter Kalman as Achilla, leader of the Egyptian army, Federica Spatola as Nireno and Luca Vianello as Curio, Cesare’s general.

This production is staged by Italian singer, stage designer and theatre director Davide Livermore, who has been directing operas since 1999. Among his most recent productions have been Verdi’s Un ballo in Maschera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at San Carlo in Naples.

The conductor is Gianluca Capuano who will lead Monte-Carlo Opera in Brahms’ A German Requiem later this month, and Cecilia Bartoli and Lang Lang in recital in April. In this production of Giulio Cesare in Egitto he leads the Monte-Carlo Opera Choir and Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco – in four performances from 24th to 30th January at Monte-Carlo Opera. Tickets for all productions may be reserved on the Monte-Carlo Opera website.

Information sourced from:

Monte-Carlo Opera programme notes

Boston Baroque

This article first appeared in Riviera Buzz.

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Nice Ballet Méditerranée presents a new version of what is regarded as the most famous of the Romantic era ballets – Giselle – staged and choreographed by Martin Chaix, with a sumptuous score by Adolphe Adam.

Giselle was the result of the collaboration of the three French artists – Ballet Masters Perrot and Coralli, and composer Adolphe Adam – who in 1841 were commissioned by the Ballet du Théâtre de l’Academie Royale de Musique to create a new work. Adam had previously composed for this company, and he co-opted librettists Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier to assist with the storyline.

It was Gautier who initially started working on the story, drawing inspiration from two sources – the poem Fantômes from Victor Hugo’s Les Orientales, which told of a Spanish girl who died after a night of frenzied dancing, and a passage in prose entitled L’Allemagne by German poet, writer and literary critic Heinrich Heine, about a Slavic tale of supernatural maidens called Wilis, young brides-to-be who die before their wedding day. Perrot and Coralli were then brought in to choreograph the work, and Giselle premiered at the Théâtre de l’Academie Royale de Musique in Paris on 28th June, 1841, with Carlotta Grisi in the title role.

The ballet tells of a frail young peasant girl who is betrayed by her beloved, the aristocratic Count Albrecht, as a result of which she dies of a broken heart. Giselle finds herself in a moonlit glade surrounded by the supernatural Wilis and their queen, Myrtha. Albrecht enters the glade to lay flowers on Giselle’s grave, and is summoned by Myrtha and her Wilis to dance to his death. The spirit of Giselle – ever forgiving, and touched by his exhaustion – pleads for mercy on his behalf, and Myrtha ultimately frees him from the vengeance of the Wilis.

Martin Chaix says of the work: “Giselle is the perfect example of a ballet from the romantic era which, beyond its ethereal and magical dimension of the second act, speaks to us in the foreground of the romantic and social-cultural relationships of the time in which it was created.” In his version of Giselle Chaix has set the ballet in our time, balancing pointe with modernity, questioning the place of women and committing himself to restoring the balance of power.

He has created a number of ballets in different styles and techniques, from classical to modern. As a dance student he was accepted at the École de Danse de l’Opéra National de Paris in 1993, and joined the Paris Opera Ballet six years later, where he made his choreographic debut. From there he moved to the Leipziger Ballet, as a soloist, and then to the Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf Duisburg where he was a soloist until 2015, in which year he became a freelance choregrapher.

This production of Giselle by Ballet Nice Méditerranée takes place at Nice Opera from December 21st to December 29th. Adolphe Adam’s score, supplemented by the music of Louise Farrenc, is played by the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra led by Beatrice Venezia. Information on tickets and times of performance are available on the Nice Opera website.

Information sourced from Ballet Nice programme notes

Artists’ websites

This article first appeared in Riviera Buzz

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As part of the Centenary Celebrations of HSH Prince Rainier III, Monte-Carlo Ballet presents Jean-Christophe Maillot’s new interpretation of George Balanchine’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. The programme opens with another of Balanchine’s works, La Valse – both ballets being set to the lovely music of Maurice Ravel.

A friend of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier III, Balanchine choreographed La Valse in 1925 to a commission by Sergei Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes. The impresario rejected the work, however, regarding it as “untheatrical”. Nevertheless when Balanchine created waltzes for the Metropolitan Opera in 1934, he choreographed a ballet to music from Die Fledermaus, and finding the work too short, he preceded it with Ravel’s Valse Nobles et Sentimentales.
The ballet, of which Prince Rainier was very fond, features a number of couples waltzing in a cavernous ballroom where a woman in white is both horrified by, and attracted to, a mysterious uninvited stranger – who ultimately lures her to her death.

In 1915, Jacques Rouché, director of the Paris Opera, commissioned the French writer Colette – whose 150th anniversary is being celebrated this year – to write the text for a fairytale ballet, L’enfant et les sortilèges. Maurice Ravel was actually the third choice of composer, and as he was on active duty on the Western Front during the First World War, he didn’t receive the commission until 1917, and therefore started work on it after the War had ended. The completed work was ready for publication and production in 1925, and L’enfant et les sortilèges, with choreography by a young George Balanchine, was premiered on March 21st of that year by Opéra Monte-Carlo. It was a triumph, and the score was also a favourite of HSH Prince Rainier III. It is now one of the most beloved of French operas.

In 1952, Jean-Christophe Maillot choreographed his first version of the ballet based on the opera, following which he met HSH Prince Rainier who praised the work. Now, thirty years later, Mr Maillot has created a new version of it.
A story based on the wonder of childhood imagination, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges tells of a young boy, consigned to his bedroom for bad behaviour, who wreaks havoc with everything in his room. Falling into a deep sleep, he dreams that the objects of his rage come to life and turn against him – the armchair, the grandfather clock, the teapot and cup, the fireplace, the characters on his wallpaper and even his arithmetic homework. Out in the garden, and still in his dream, the boy exacts his revenge on the tree, a dragonfly, a frog, a bat, a nightingale, and even his pet squirrel, but after an act of mercy in which he binds up the squirrel’s paw with a ribbon, the creatures take pity on him and lead him back to the house, leaving the garden bathed in the magic of moonlight. Full of regret on waking, he turns to his mother for forgiveness.

This production, led by David Molard Soriano, Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France, will feature 240 artists in all. The Monte-Carlo Ballet and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra will be joined by an Academy of young singers – created for this occasion by Cecilia Bartoli – and The Children’s Choir of the Rainier III Academy.

La Valse and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges will be staged in the Salle des Princes, Grimaldi Forum, from 20th to 23rd December. Tickets may be obtained from the Ballets de Monte-Carlo website.

Information sourced from:
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo programme notes
The Balanchine Trust
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Angela Gheorghiu is the star of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Operatic Gala in which the Romanian soprano sings a selection of lovely songs and arias interspersed with some wonderful pieces of symphonic music. The London Philharmonic is led by Gergely Madaras.

The programme features arias such as Puccini’s Un bel di, vedremo from Madame Butterfly and Boito’s L’altra notte in fondo al mare from Mefistofele, as well as pieces of music like Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise from Eugene Onegin and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor.

Angela Gheorghiu – described by the New York Sun as “The most glamorous and gifted opera singer of our time” – has been delighting audiences since she debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1952. That was the year in which she also made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Vienna State Opera. In 1994 Angela Gheorghiu made her first appearance as Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata – a performance for which the BBC cleared its schedules in order to broadcast the opera live, the first time this had taken place in television and operatic history.

According to The Sunday Times, she is “…. the most instantly recognisable and interesting soprano voice of our time, a liquid instrument of great lyrical beauty with gleaming ‘spun gold’ high notes, but a dark, vibrant contralto range ….”. Ms Gheorghiu has appeared in opera houses and concert halls the world over during her career, her next performance being the role of Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème at the Royal Opera House in January 2024.

Conductor Gergely Madaras, currently Music Director of Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, was formerly Music Director of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne, and Chief Conductor of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra in his native Hungary, having held both positions for 6 years. He has appeared with many of the major symphony orchestras in Europe, as well as with the BBC Symphony and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Future plans include appearances with the the City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Hungarian State Opera, Oslo Philharmonic and Gürzenich Orchestra Köln.

Gergely Madaras leads Angela Gheorghiu and the London Philharmonic in an Operatic Gala on Saturday, 2nd December at the Southbank Centre. Tickets and information on forthcoming events at the LPO may be obtained on the LPO website.

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Monte-Carlo Opera presents Don Carlo, in a new production by Davide Livermore of Giuseppe Verdi’s dramatic and moving story of passion, betrayal, political intrigue and conflict between father and son.

The opera stars Russian tenor Sergey Skorokhodov in the title role, with Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov as his father, Filippo II, king of Spain. Elisabetta di Valois, with whom Don Carlo has fallen in love, is sung by Lebanese-Canadian soprano Joyce El-Khoury, and the role of La Principessa Eboli who is in love with Don Carlo, is taken by Armenian mezzo-soprano Varduhi Abrahamyan. Polish baritone Artur Ruciński is Rodrigo, marquis of Posa and Carlo’s friend, and Russian bass Alexey Tikhomirov is Il Grande Inquisitore. The production is led by Massimo Zanetti.

Verdi started writing his five-act opera in 1867, with a French libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on Friedrich Schiller’s play Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien, which Schiller completed in 1787. The opera was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra, Paris, and premiered at the Académie impériale de musique on 11th March 1867. Don Carlos – as it is known in the French version – was then translated into Italian as Don Carlo, in the first of a number of revisions set to both French and Italian librettos. This is the second version of the opera, compressed into four acts, and sung in Italian. It premiered at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 10th January, 1884.

Set in France and Spain between 1567 to 1568, the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opera is largely fictional, although it features actual historical figures. Don Carlo is the son of King Philip II of Spain and therefore heir to the Spanish throne. Carlo is in love with Princess Elisabetta di Valois of France, but his hopes of marrying her are thwarted by his father, who – as part of a peace treaty signed between Spain and France – takes Elisabetta as his own wife. Undaunted, Carlo comes up against the conspiracies and intrigues of the royal court, and – with everyone under the watchful eye of the Grand Inquisitor – tension and paranoia abound, leading the king to suspect his wife of infidelity with Carlo.

Ultimately, Carlo has to make a choice between loyalty to his father and his love for Elisabetta. In actuality, Philip and Elizabeth apparently had a happy marriage, and the love story between Elizabeth and her stepson was invented by writer Friedrich von Schiller and exploited by Verdi for maximum dramatic impact.

The four acts of this drama are all located in Spain, however Monte-Carlo Opera has placed the prologue of the original version in Fontainebleau, and this is sung in French.

Sergey Skorokhodov comes to Monte-Carlo directly from the Bolshoi Theatre where he appeared in the title role in Don Carlo at the end of October. With a repertoire which includes those of Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Nemorino in Donizetti’s Lelisir d’amore, Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth, Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata, Cavarodossi in Puccini’s Tosca, Calaf in Puccini’s Turandot and the tenor role in Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, he has also appeared on the stages of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, most of the major opera houses in Europe, and in the Glyndebourne and Edinburgh festivals. He was last seen in Monte-Carlo in Tchaikovsky’s Ioalanthe in 2015. Future appearances include a concert performance of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Carnegie Hall and the role of Ivan in The Nose – both works by Shostakovich – at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

Ildar Abdrazakov, regarded as one of the greatest interpreters of the role of Filippo II, has become a firm favourite at the Metropolitan Opera, and is also a regular visitor to the Paris National Opera, the Vienna State Opera and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. The Independent refers to him as a “sensational bass … who has just about everything – imposing sound, beautiful legato, oodles of finesse”. Having recently appeared as a soloist with Monte-Carlo Opera in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, he will also participate this season in the Gala Verdiano at the Ravenna Festival, appear as Mustafa in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri at Opernhuis Zurich, and at another performance in Verdi’s Messa da requiem at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

According to Presto Classical, Joyce El-Khoury is “Blessed with old-school vocal and physical glamour and a richly coloured flexible soprano that shines particularly brightly in Verdi, Bellini and Donizetti.” Immediately following this performance of Don Carlo, Joyce will appear in an Italian Opera Gala with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester in Berlin, as Christine, Queen of Sweden in Julien Bilodeau and Michel Marc Bouchard’s La Reine-garçon with Opéra de Montreal, and Maria Boccanegra in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at Finnish National Opera.

Following Varduhi Abrahamyan’s performance in Handel’s Ariodante in 2016, Plays to See wrote that as Polinesso, she “…. was sinister and chillingly violent while demonstrating a vocal mastery that was terrifyingly precise”. She last appeared with Monte-Carlo Opera in January of this year as Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina and also in concert in Rossini’s oratorio Stabat Mater. Following this appearance in Don Carlo, Ms Abrahamyan will perform the title role in Bizet’s Carmen at Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona and at Oper Frankfurt, and in concert in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie in Paris.

Having seen Artur Ruciński in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burina, the late music journalist Karl Löbl wrote: “Baritone Discovery at Vienna Musikverein – take note of the name Artur Ruciński and go to every opera in which you can hear this singer…”. Future plans include appearances at the Italian Opera Gala with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester in Berlin, as Renato/Count Ankarström in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschero at Teatro Regio di Parma in Barcelona and as Lord Enrico Ashton in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Alexey Tikhomirov, he of the “…powerful vocal volume and the impressive interpretation”, according to Bachtrack, has appeared on the stages of many European and wider Asian concert halls and opera houses. Following these performances in Monte-Carlo, he returns to the Helicon Opera in Moscow where he will sing the role of Timur in Puccini’s Turandot, then to Frankfurt for performances as Chub in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Christmas Eve.

Also in the cast are Reinaldo Macias as Il Conte di Lerma, Madison Nonoa as Voce Dal Cielo, Salvo Vitale as Frate and Mirjam Mesa as Tebaldo.

Davide Livermore has been artistic director of the Teatro Baretti in Turin since 2002 where he focuses on experimental music theatre. He describes this production of Don Carlo as “A show that displays historical aesthetics with all modern technology”. Before returning to Monte-Carlo to direct a production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, he will fly to Brisbane where Opera Australia will stage his production of Verdi’s Aïda for which he will also do the choreography.

Massimo Zanetti has worked regularly with the Staatskapelle Berlin, for whom he will lead performances of Don Carlo and La bohème in the new year. Codelario describes him as an “electrifying and energetic conductor, who also understands how to charm with the most evocative lyricism”.

Maestro Zanetti leads the Monte-Carlo Opera Choir (choirmaster Stefano Visconti) and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra in three performances of Verdi’s Don Carlo on 22nd, 24th and 26th November, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. For further information and booking details, see the Monte-Carlo Opera website.

Information sourced from

Monte-Carlo programme notes

A version of this article first appeared in Riviera Buzz

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