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Paris Opera, Lissner Season 2: the 2016/2017 Season

At the Opéra de Paris, Stéphane Lissner, like any new director making his ambitions known, was met by sceptics and naysayers lying in wait for him, along with all those who wished him less than well: the success of his first performances quickly swept away all the reservations and banana peels strewn in his path. His success was obvious, hailed by national and international critics and corroborated by the enthusiasm of the audiences filling the halls.This success is of course...


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Jonas Kaufmann: three operas, three roles, three styles

Jonas Kaufmann is probably one of the most solicited performer of the lyrical stages nowadays and after having interpreted recently Don Jose in Carmen in the Orange Choregies, the German tenor will personify Fidelio’s Florestan in a few days in a new production signed by Claus Guth in Salzburg festival, followed by Ramades’ role in Aida, next September in Munich. Three very distinct roles, interpreted in three languages, in three stylistically different iconic operas: a...


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Conversation about Carmen with Jonas Kaufmann and Inva Mula

They say that Carmen is the world’s most popular opera, especially because of its title role, a symbol of freedom and passion.And yet the role takes on meaning only as a counterpoint to those of Don José (the officer passionately smitten with the cigar girl) and Micaela (who tries to bring Don José back to his senses) both of whom are generally considered the representatives of a military order on one hand and a social or familial order on the other.More...


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Plácido Domingo, orchestra tenor

Plácido Domingo is a monument. Like all monuments, there may be a strong temptation to want to deconstruct him, put him on trial, undermine his foundations, and like any monument of that kind, the interested party is not the last one to provide arguments in favour of this deconstruction. This irrepressible desire to want to keep his long career going at any cost, for example: he had been paving the way for it for a long time, trying to establish himself as a conductor, with an...


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Iphigénie en Tauride: Birth of the Musical Tragedy

Cecilia Bartoli is reviving Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride for the Salzburg Whitsun Festival. As we eagerly await this new interpretation (which we know will be very erudite and documented) in a new production, we take a look back at the work itself, mid-way between opera and theatre, and its historical context, marked by the advent of Romanticism at the expense of opera seria. *** Iphigénie en Tauride, Gluck’s last Parisian triumph, is...


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Nina Stemme: Wagner Today

Suddenly, it’s obvious. She had been virtually unheard of, and now her name is suddenly on everyone’s lips. Yet she was one of the winners of the first Operalia competition in 1993; she debuted in Bayreuth in 1997, but she was merely singing Freia three years in a row, and Bayreuth then forgot her until two summers devoted to Isolde, in 2005 and 2006.Meanwhile, she’d had the time to make her debut in Salzburg (in Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules in 2002),...


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Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci: Betting It All on Verismo

Perhaps not as well known as some more regularly staged operas, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci (by Mascagni and Leoncavallo, respectively) are, nonetheless, major operas in the history of the genre (laying the foundations of verismo), with some of the most famous arias in opera and, in particular, having been interpreted by the greatest singers (Caruso foremost among them). And more recently, by Jonas Kaufmann, reprising the role of Turiddu at the Salzburg Easter Festival...


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Joyce DiDonato : Master Class at Carnegie Hall

"Besides talent, what does it take to be a successful opera singer?" asked the aspiring artist right next to me to Joyce DiDonato on the last day of her masterclass at Carnegie Hall on this freezing cold 23rd of February. DiDonato answered: “Be curious. Ask your teachers: what was life in the 17th century? How did Handel understand women so well?”. Watching her master class is a fascinating way to understand what opera singers have to go through before bringing an...


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Jonas Kaufmann renounces to Cavalleria Rusticana at La Scala

Each season or so in the biggest opera houses’ program, Jonas Kaufmann is nowadays one of the major performers of the lyrical scenes, able to fulfil entire auditoriums only based on his name, reaching a point that artistic directors wrest his commitments sometimes years in advance. This datebook can however turn out to be heavy, physically and vocally – the tenor highlighted recently on BBC that if “an agenda full for the coming five years proves to be financially...


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Anja Harteros : Aida young at last

Linked for a long time to Wagner's repertoire, Anja Harteros  is nowadays obviously more dedicated to Verdi's one. Next friday, she embodies Aida at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Roma, alongside Jonas Kaufmann and Ludovic Tezier. After referring to the work a few days ago, we now look at the role-title singer. *** Are divas condemned to live on an aeroplane between two triumphant appearances? They have been roundly criticised, perhaps...