More than you can Handel in Real life
OperaMadrid’s Teatro Real has just rolled out a fabulous new season with four Handel operas – Theodora , Tamerlano , Alcina and Jephta – and a pair of French Baroques you won’t see anywhere else – Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (pictured) and Rameau’s Les Indes Gallants.
Among other attractions, Nicola Luisotti will conduct David McVicar’s production of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. Cast includes: Ermonela Jaho, Maria Agresta, Brian Jagde, Matthew Polenzani, Elīna Garanča, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Nicola Alaimo, and Manel Esteve.
McVicar’s version of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda features Lisette Oropesa, Ismael Jordi, Silvia Tro Santafé and Airam Hernandez.
There are two Russian operas – Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tale of Tsar Saltan and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin – and Manuel de Falla’s La Vida Breve is paired with Jesús Torres’ Tejas Verdes in a Spanish double-bill.
19 operas in all – a house with real attitude. Keep it to yourself.
Wonderful! Teatro Real is the best!
Would that the US had ANY opera house that presented such a season of this variety, interest, and substance, not to mention casting and musical direction.
Gracias a Dios I get to attend the Teatro Real occasionally (when they aren’t sold out..).
I don’t understand the final comments.
When I read (here and in other recent postings) of this interesting new emphasis on Baroque opera by mainstream opera houses — by which I mean, not just by companies or theaters that specialize in Baroque opera — I’m reminded that Leopold Stokowski (of all people, yet how typical of him) in the early 1960s suggested to Rudolph Bing that the Metropolitan Opera really needed to be thinking seriously about tailoring its technical facilities and stage design for the “new” Met (now the current Met) to accommodate what he predicted was going to be a coming wave of interest in Baroque opera.
Bing told him, in so many words evidently, that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that the Met repertoire was not going to include many if any Baroque operas.
Stokowski got his revenge of sorts at the farewell gala for the old house, when after conducting some Wagner to open the evening, he spontaneously turned to the audience and Isaac Stern-like, begged that ways be found to “save this beautiful house” — knowing full well that selling it to be torn down was the only way they could possibly afford to build the new Met. Bing was reportedly infuriated at this attempted sabotage. And of course, not long afterwards the nearby City Opera scored a huge hit with Handel’s Giulio Cesare, but there was no Handel at the Met until 1984.
19 operas, compared to 4 in Los Angeles, I guess the Spanish economy is doing REAL well.
But I am assuming these will be eurotrash Handel shows, not Drottningholm style.
They’re all actually in concert version, not staged, which is too bad but oh well.
A wise move in the case of Jephtha, if the recent ROH attempt at staging it is any guide.
I believe Theodora is staged in the Katie Mitchell production from Covent Garden. The other three are in concert.
Well Theodora and Jephtha are oratorios, not meant to be staged, so just as well.
All in concert version, which is a pity (would be so great to see these operas staged again), but I’ll take what I can. At least it’s ambitious programming.
For those who would like to delve more: https://www.teatroreal.es/sites/default/files/inline-files/%E2%80%A6AVANCE%20COMPLETO%2008_03_v11_CIERRE_LR.pdf
Has any opera house done Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (pictured) as written, i.e., boy soprano in the role of Jonathas? It would be scandalous and probably illegal in many countries, but what’s the point of authentic period performance?
In Versailles, it was made one time with a child, but a girl. Conductor Olivier Schneebeli. CD this month.
What is the point? Theaters don’t use “period actors” or even “period acting.” How can a fraud be “authentic?”
Who’s the hunky guy in the photo? (I mean the human one on the left, not the marble one on the right.)
And I mean only “from the neck up,” because I get really, really, really tired of people using software to insert someone else’s face above my astonishingly muscular torso.
And why is he putting his finger to his lips? As in “don’t ask, don’t tell”?
In any case, a woman soprano is cast (as is standard practice today) in singing the role of Jonathas, so why the false advertisement?
And for anyone who cares, scholarship today points to Jonathan being around 25 years OLDER than David, so whatever their relationship that Saul disapproved of, it was not as a couple of hunky lovers of the same age.
25 years age difference does not negate any possibility of being hunky lovers! I do fully support the view of them as lovers, as is clearly indicated in the Torah by anyone willing to understand it. “A love surpassing that of man for woman,” indeed. Scholarship? That implies the Torah is 100% factual.
Madrid’s Teatro Real has also scheduled concerts featuring Anna Netrebko, Juan Diego Flores, Ludovic Tezier, Sondra Radvanovsky, Piotr Beczala, Asmik Gregorian, and Michael Volle. Excellent program.
Not a single opera from the German repertory – no Wagner, no Strauss.
Wonderful. There is no excuse for worldwide domination by Wagner and Strauss. Shame on you. Germany is not the most important nation in classical music. Rameau was more important than Bach. So was Handel.
Tamerlano and Alcina are operas, but Jephta and Theodora are oratorios, so concert version for these works is quite logical.
French baroque operas are often played in France. David et Jonathas was played this year in a staged version in Nancy, Caen, Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées) and Luxemburg. Two years ago in Versailles.
Les Indes Galantes come from the last production in Paris Opera.
This month in Paris Opera : Charpentier’s Médée (William Christie). 13 shows. Sold out.
Next year : Rameau’s Castor et Pollux (Paris Opéra, 13 shows), Les Fêtes d’Hébé (Opéra comique), Samson (Aix en Provence and Opéra Comique). All in staged version.
Haendel’s Semele in a staged version (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées).
Finally, in Versailles Opéra (in a marvellous concert room), baroque music all over the year, in staged and concert version.
But will they dare to use modern instruments? A “baroque” harp might as well be ba-roken. They sound horrible.
“a pair of French Baroques you won’t see anywhere else” oh really? Savid and Jonathan was just staged in Paris and Les Indes is staged practically every season in France. Other than thant Jephtha is an oratorio and Theodira is neither an opera nor an oratorio. But all in all a very interesing program with great casts.
Now I’m extra excited about taking their timpani audition next month!
Where can I get a copy of the poster?!
Hiring singers based on their physical appearance and not their voices and talent is going against the very nature of opera. The photo suggests that the singer spends more time working out than singing.