After the sensational success of A Swan Lake, performed by the Norwegian National Ballet in 2014 at the Oslo Opera, the choreographical prodige Alexander Ekman created his Midsummer Night's Dream in April, 2015 for the Royal Swedish Ballet at the Stockholm Opera. A powerful contemporary piece that explores the energy and the mysteries conjured up by the summer solstice in the scandinavian tradition. It is the height of summer, the longest day of the year, and everyone gets together to celebrate the most loved of all traditions - Midsummer. Expectations are high, seven kinds of flower must be picked, schnapps must be drunk, and everyone dances giddily around the maypole - perhaps there will even be new love in the air? It is a night filled of love and eroticism as nature gushe s with vitality. The border between the world of mortals and the kingdom of the supernatural becomes thinner and thinner as the bottle becomes emptier and emptier. Traditions play jokes on us, the world changes and suddenly we are no longer sure - is it all a dream?...a midsummer night's dream.

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The Firebird:

Ekaterina Kondaurova (Firebird)
Ilya Kuznetsov (Ivan Tsarevich)
Marianna Pavlova (The Princess)
Vladimir Ponomarev (Kachtchei the Immortal)
Choreography & libretto: Michel Fokine (1910)
Reconstruction Isabelle Fokine, Andris Liepa
The Rite of Spring:

Alexandra Iosifidi (The Chosen One)
Elena Bazhenova (300-Year-Old Woman)
Vladimir Ponomarev (Shaman)
Choreography after Vaslav Nijinsky (1913)
Scene plan: Igor Stravinsky & Nicholas Roerich, reconstructed and staged by Millicent Hodson

Today it is difficult to imagine the impact on audiences at the beginning of the 20th century of Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) and his Ballets Russes. In celebration of the debut of the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909, this wonderful Stravinsky evening at the Mariinsky Theatre showcases the original Nijinsky version of The Rite of Spring along with The Firebird, both conducted by Valery Gergiev.

Thanks to the relentless work of Millicent Hodson, Nijinsky's original choreography has now been recreated, performed by the lead dancers and Ballet Company of the Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Valery Gergiev, known the world over for his interpretation of Stravinsky's works.

Maria Guleghina, Savatore Licitra, Carlo Bosi, Luiz-Ottavio Faria, Leonardo Lopez Linares, Gianluca Bocchino, Saverio Fiore, Giuliano Pelizon, Angel Harkatz Kaufman, and Tamar Iveri star in this Area di Verona production of the Puccini opera.

A profound, powerful and yet unfinished opera, Moses und Aron ends with an admission of defeat: "O word, thou Word that I lack!", Moses' last cry, is also the last phrase the composer has been able to set to music. Recounting the story of Moses, who has experienced the immensity of God, and of Aron, who tries to speak of it; casting doubt, with dodecaphonism, upon the adequacy of tonal and traditional musical language; Moses und Aron questions the possibility of a True Speech. Following in their wanderings the chidlren of Israel, a stateless people lost in the desert and looking for signs and images, Moses un Aron symbolizes the challenges encountered by a community looking for her own identity, torn between spiritual ideal and material needs. The opera thus reveals, in Romeo Castellucci's spectacular and poetic staging, a tragic divide between what can and cannot be represented, between God and idols, between endlessness and constriction, between the realm of intuition and the realm of language. The Paris Opera Chorus and Orchestra, who, thanks to his musical director Philippe Jordan's work, has pierced all the secrets of Schönberg's audacious score, reveal with grace and accuracy all the emotion contained in this anxious, overwhelming and unforgettable masterpiece.

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore, based on the eponymous play by Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez, takes us to 15th c. northern Spain to witness the tragic destiny of those under the control of Azucena, who is seeking to avenge the death of his mother. + The first percussion notes are solemn, setting the tone for Verdi’s masterpiece, whose main themes include abandonment, passion, power, love for one’s parents and vengeance. + This production marked the debut of Russian stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov at La Monnaie and the first Verdi interpretation by Marc Minkowski.

Bringing together again, for the first time since their premiere, Tchaikovsky's opera Iolanta and ballet The Nutcracker, was the audacious challenge that Russian stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov accepted for the Palais Garnier in Paris in March 2016 : a revolutionary production, which was to become one of the key events of the Paris Opera season. With great intelligence, Tcherniakov renews the dialogue between the two masterpieces, and reveals their common origins. He thus reminds us that both Iolanta and The Nutcracker are first and foremost initiatory journeys, in which the heroes experience love and loss, fortune and misfortune. In doing so, Dmitri Tcherniakov, with the collaboration of contemporary choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock and Arthur Pita, goes as far as to completely disregard the magical extravaganzas that Marius Petipa associated to The Nutcracker, and radically turns the dream into a nightmare dominated by despair and loneliness. To insure the continuity and a sense of dramatic consistency between the opera and the ballet, Tcherniakov skillfully modulates the space provided by the Palais Garnier. A solution that also enables him to question the very nature of both theater and illusion, as well as their specular relationship with the reality they try to make us forget. Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva delivers a flamboyant interpretation of the blind princess Iolanta, and shares the stage with Polish tenor Arnold Rutkowski and Ukrainian bass Alexander Tsymbalyuk. The internationally renowned French conductor Alain Altinoglu joins forces with the Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus, while the Paris Opera Ballet, among which Marion Barbeau- a radiant Marie - and the Etoiles St�phane Bullion and Alice Renavand, revives the most popular ballet of all time.

A 3-Opera Digistack (Limited Edition) featuring great productions seen at the prestigious Arena di Verona: Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s Nabucco, and Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia. Bizet’s Carmen – one of the most beloved operas – staged at the world-famous Arena di Verona. This opulent production is directed by Franco Zeffirelli and sung by an international cast of excellent singers: Ekaterina Semenchuk, Irina Lungu, Carlo Ventre and Carlos Álvarez. The famous opera is staged as a colorful feast for the eyes, true to its source and convincingly acted by soloists, chorus and ballet alike. Boldly transposing the action out of biblical times and into Italian Risorgimento, French director Arnaud Bernard goes as far as to center the entire opera Nabucco during the popular uprisings of 1848 and in the insides of the Milanese opera house. A clever way to emphasize on the legends that have been building around Verdi’s operas and the role they played in the political process of uniting the Italian peninsula, and in the construction of an authentic italianità. For this reprisal of Hugo de Ana’s famous staging at the Arena di Verona, Rossini’s masterpiece Il Barbiere di Siviglia is conducted by Maestro Daniel Oren. Italian baritone Leo Nucci, a true connoisseur of the part, is a boastful and virtuoso Figaro, while soprano Nino Machaidze and tenor Dmitry Korchak are perfect as the not-so-candid lovers around whom the opera revolves. And who better than Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, who shines in the “Calunnia” aria, for the part of Basilio?

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Platée is a masterpiece of the French operatic repertoire and was highly regarded by critics during the composer’s lifetime. Composed for the marriage of the Dauphin Louis, son of Louis XV, to the Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain, it was first performed at Versailles in 1745 and became an instant hit. The plot concerns the ugly and conceited frog Platée, the victim of a machination of the gods who make her believe that she is loved by Jupiter. Is this Rameau mocking Princess Maria Teresa of Spain – reputedly a woman of little beauty? Or the French court, which saw itself as a new Olympus? This classic production from the Opéra de Paris by Marc Minkowski and Laurent Pelly returns to the stage with an entirely new cast, featuring Julie Fuchs, Mathias Vidal, Jean Teitgen and Lawrence Brownlee.

Denis Sneguirev's documentary about Yuri Grigorovitch, The Golden Ag, takes its name from the last great ballet choreographed by Grigorovitch for the Moscow Bolshoi, which he led from 1964 to 1995. His 31-year tenure at the healm of one of the world's most prestigious companies coincides with the golden age of soviet ballet. Adored by some, vilified by others, Grigorovitch was nicknamed the "Tsar of the Bolshoi". He created several of the iconic ballets which were to bring his troupe fame in the Soviet Union and also internationally, at a time when dance was used as a propaganda tool in the delicate political relations between the west and the east. Spectacular productions like Ivan the Terrible and Spartacus, which combined ancient epics with great national frescos, were discovered by western audiences for the first time. Grigorovitch's art was at its best in these ample narratives, where he exploited the strength and virtuosity of his dancers, who were at this time unrivaled in the west. Sneguirev's film addresses Yuri Grigorovitch directly, in the form of a letter. Interspersing interviews with artists and colleagues of Grigorovitch we look back over the career of this dancer and choreographer, which from its origins in Leningrad, and later in Moscow, would bring him international renown. The director also includes several extracts of Grigorovitch's ballets, set in context with the history of Soviet Ballet and with history in general.

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Also available on standard DVD

A modern Opera adaptation by Charles Wuorinen based on Annie Proulx's short sorty previously adaptated by Ang Lee for the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain.

Brokeback Mountain marks Wuorinen's return to the opera stage with one of the major works of his career, equally ambitious in its beauty and momentous tragedy. Brokeback is the story of ranch hand Ennis del Mar and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist, two young men who meet and fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. Wuorinen says "It's a story of doomed love, in this case a complex homosexual relationship taking place in a very homophobic society."
In a decidedly different approach than the film adaptation, Wuorinen creates a grittier atmosphere. The story and characters have been tightly condensed by Proulx. In reference to the genesis of the story Proulx has written "'Brokeback' was constructed on the small but tight idea of a couple of home-grown country kids, opinions and self-knowledge shaped by the world around them, finding themselves in emotional waters of increasing depth. I wanted to develop the story through a kind of literary sostenente."
In approaching the work for the stage Wuorinen writes "The music of Brokeback Mountain conveys the harsh magnificence of the Mountain where the protagonists first meet. Visiting Annie in Wyoming, seeing the land where the story is set and the characters shaped was invaluable, and it made a deep impression on me. Sometimes the score evokes the icy clarity of the high-altitude freedom the characters enjoy there. But the Mountain also breathes and storms, and the music projects this turbulence as well - especially when it transfers into the interior lives of the characters and their interactions in the human world. And the tragedy of the two principals, their doomed love, calls forth the most lyrical flights in the score."
With bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch and tenor Tom Randle. Staged by Ivo van Hove and conducted by Titus Engel.

Also available on Blu-ray

A modern Opera adaptation by Charles Wuorinen based on Annie Proulx's short sorty previously adaptated by Ang Lee for the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain.

Brokeback Mountain marks Wuorinen's return to the opera stage with one of the major works of his career, equally ambitious in its beauty and momentous tragedy. Brokeback is the story of ranch hand Ennis del Mar and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist, two young men who meet and fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. Wuorinen says "It's a story of doomed love, in this case a complex homosexual relationship taking place in a very homophobic society."

In a decidedly different approach than the film adaptation, Wuorinen creates a grittier atmosphere. The story and characters have been tightly condensed by Proulx. In reference to the genesis of the story Proulx has written "'Brokeback' was constructed on the small but tight idea of a couple of home-grown country kids, opinions and self-knowledge shaped by the world around them, finding themselves in emotional waters of increasing depth. I wanted to develop the story through a kind of literary sostenente."

In approaching the work for the stage Wuorinen writes "The music of Brokeback Mountain conveys the harsh magnificence of the Mountain where the protagonists first meet. Visiting Annie in Wyoming, seeing the land where the story is set and the characters shaped was invaluable, and it made a deep impression on me. Sometimes the score evokes the icy clarity of the high-altitude freedom the characters enjoy there. But the Mountain also breathes and storms, and the music projects this turbulence as well - especially when it transfers into the interior lives of the characters and their interactions in the human world. And the tragedy of the two principals, their doomed love, calls forth the most lyrical flights in the score."

With bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch and tenor Tom Randle. Staged by Ivo van Hove and conducted by Titus Engel.

Also available on standard DVD

Leocadia Begbick - Jane Henschel
Fatty "the Bookkeeper" - Donald Kaasch
Trinity Moses - Willard White
Jenny Smith - Measha Brueggergosman
Jim Maclntyre - Michael König
O’Brien/Higgins - John Easterlin
Bank-Account Bill - Otto Katzameier
Alaska-Wolf Joe - Steven Humes

Conductor: Pablo Heras-Casado
Stage Direction : Alex Ollé, Carlus Padrissa – La Fura dels Baus

A hard-hitting new production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus at the Teatro Real de Madrid.

Composed in the 1930s by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, this is a mordant satire on capitalism and the inexorable industrialisation of a society in which the ultimate crime is not having money. In twenty scenes the authors tell the story of a city lost in the middle of a desert and run by three thugs; in Mahagonny food, sex, gambling and violence rule supreme.

The production by Alex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa, both of La Fura dels Baus, combines enormous inventiveness, joy and energy with awe-inspiring ferocity.

Perfect casting brings together a group of singers – Measha Brueggergosman, Michael König, Jane Henschel and Willard White – who are also marvellous actors.

The Teatro Real Orchestra and Chorus are directed by young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, who actually began his career at the Teatro Real. In November 2010, he received the “El Ojo Crítico” prize, awarded annually to Spain’s most outstanding artists in the classical music field.

Director: Andy Sommer
Length: 138 min
Subtitles: French / English / German / Spanish
Zones: All Zones - 1 disc

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A brand new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ from the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has brought to the stage this Romantic Wagner opera with a star cast of some of today's best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.

HD recording: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin – 04/2014
DVD Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, NTSC, Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

A brand new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ from the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has brought to the stage this Romantic Wagner opera with a star cast of some of today's best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.

HD recording: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin – 04/2014
BLURAY Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, Full HD, Audio:PCM 2.0, DTS HD Master Audio

A mythical performance from la Monnaie - Bruxelles.
Parsifal is a strange and enigmatic work. At the end of his life, did Wagner wish to celebrate asceticism, which he himself had never practised? Did he fall upon his knees before the Cross, as claimed by Nietzsche? And what does the secret society of knights based on pure blood signify, desperately waiting for the saviour to regenerate it? What is the true nature of the opposition between the worlds of Klingsor and the Grail? What can Parsifal tell us today? In his artistic will and testament, Wagner condenses his moral idea of the world and returns to the roots of love and religion - to the very heart of art according to him.
With the participation of conductor Hartmut Haenchen who is passionated by the score, Italian stage director Romeo Castellucci proposes an original reading of this brilliant work and explores the essence of Wagnerian ‘Kunstreligion’ in a different light.

“Thanks to the telling contributions of Mr. Castellucci and Mr. Haenchen, the Monnaie’s ‘Parsifal’ casts new light on a difficult opera.” NY TIMES

Parsifal: Andrew Richards
Kundry: Anna Larsson
Gurnemanz: Jan-Hendrik Rootering
Amfortas: Thomas Johannes Mayer
Klingsor: Tómas Tómasson
Titurel: Victor von Halem

Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie
Hartmut Haenchen

Stage direction: Romeo Castellucci
Choreography: Cindy Van Acker
Set & costume designs, lighting: Romeo Castellucci
Dramaturgy: Piersandra di Matteo
Recording: La Monnaie / De Munt, Bruxelles - 20/02/2011

R E V I E W:
WAGNER Parsifal • Hartmut Haenchen, cond; Andrew Richards (Parsifal); Anna Larsson (Kundry); Jan-Hendrick Rootering (Gurnemanz); Thomas Johannes Mayer (Amfortas); Tómas Tómasson (Klingsor); Victor von Halem (Titurel); O symphonique de la Monnaie; Ch de la Monnaie; Ch de jeunes de la Monnaie • BELAIR (DVD: 239:00) Live: Brussels 2/20/2011

The Parisian daily Le Monde called this 2011 Le Monnaie production “un Parsifal hallucinaire.” That’s putting it mildly. Wagner’s operas have long inspired “extreme” treatments and this is one of the most extreme I’ve encountered. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. It’s not for the faint of heart. And I wouldn’t want to be without it.

Parsifal is the first operatic undertaking for the Italian playwright and stage director Romeo Castellucci, well known for his avant-garde tendencies. In the hyperbolic language sometimes employed by men and women devoted to dramaturgy, Castelluci explains his method in the liner notes. “As I approached Parsifal, I tried to forget everything I knew. I put myself in the shoes of someone who knew nothing. I closed my eyes, and I listened once, twenty times, and then a hundred times to the music, this thing. Then I slept. I reworked the whole of Parsifal in a state of amnesia, from the beginning to the end. A work like this needs a vision coming from one’s deepest places … not just an illustrative approach.” OK, that’s a little over the top. But there truly is a dreamlike quality to what you witness here. One remembers images rather than scenes when it’s all over. Act I’s setting is a dense and dark forest in which one can, at first, barely make out the principal singers. (Gurnemanz’s costume covers him from head to toe in leaves, so he fits right in.) Act II is borderline pornographic, as Castelluci dispenses with singing Flowermaidens on stage and, with the vocalists out of sight, has Parsifal tempted by platinum-wigged nude dancers (and, as the credits acknowledge, “Shibari bondage performers” and “contortionists.”) One dancer lies down on a pedestal and aims her external genitalia at the audience for a good 20 minutes. Kundry’s and Amfortas’s act of sexual congress, barely alluded to as a historical event in run-of-the-mill Parsifals, is graphically projected as a hologram. Act III is a complete change of gears, with the chorus joined by a large crowd of non-singing supernumeraries in modern-day dress that, from the Transformation Scene onward, are seen to be slowly striding forward, presumably to a better future world. There are clichés, to be sure—the face paint, Kundry’s application of a few words, graffiti-style, to a blank wall, etc.—and some familiar visual theatrical features are missing: there’s no spear, no non-healing wound, no sign of the Cross when Klingsor’s realm is vanquished. But for contemplative Wagnerians, this will be a very rich experience indeed.

It helps enormously that the musical values are first-rate. Hartmut Haenchen is an experienced and insightful Wagner conductor and, as with his excellent Ring cycle for Etcetera (Fanfare 31:3), he consults the notes of Wagner’s assistants and other artists involved in the first Bayreuth performances. Haenchen definitely eschews the draggy tempos that have become common, but this Parsifal is not the least bit rushed. (For the record, the timing is a half-hour longer than Pierre Boulez’s famously brisk 1970 Bayreuth recording.) Castellucci is not alone in finding Kundry to be the central character in Parsifal—she’s alive and well when the curtain comes down at the close of act III—and Anne Larsson does a terrific job with the wide-ranging dramatic requirements of her role. Jan-Hendrick Rootering is a magisterial Gurnemanz and the American tenor Andrew Richards has a pleasing, well-supported voice well suited to Parsifal. This is Richards’s first Wagner role and, from the sounds of it, Siegmund and Walther, at least, should be on his radar. Thomas Johannes Mayer appears and sounds agonized without scenery chewing. (Remember, he’s got no wound to show off.) Tómas Tómasson is an excellent singer, though perhaps his Klingsor should be a bit less robust to contrast better with the other male characters that still have their “equipment” intact.

Most opera videos released nowadays are carefully planned, with a film director assigned to the project; this video, we are told, is “purely an archive.” No apologies are necessary. The camera work is skillful and editor didn’t feel obliged to always show us who was singing at the moment. (How long can you watch Gurnemanz explaining the back-story, anyway?) The medium was clearly analog film. The sound is good and even though the resolution of Dolby Digital is lower than the stereo PCM option on a DVD, the surround sound program here is sonically very satisfactory. Subtitle choices are English, French, Dutch, and German.

Clearly, this shouldn’t be anyone’s introduction to Parsifal. But for those who want to explore new levels of meaning and emotional power in Wagner’s final work, BelAir’s release deserves the strongest consideration.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint