A program article for Opera Australia’s co-production with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, produced by Olivier Py and featuring Jonas Kaufmann as Lohengrin and Emily Magee as Elsa. Scheduled initially for 2020, performances were deferred because of Covid until 2022.
Archive | Essays & Reviews
Tristan in Shanghai, Colin Mackerras
On Sunday 6 July (2025), I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of Tristan and Isolde in the Lyric Theatre (Da Juchang) of the Shanghai Grand Theatre (Shanghai Da Juyuan). It was one of three performances of the work that constituted, as Katharina Wagner, the Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Festival…
WAGNER DUETS, Peter Bassett.
“Nothing but duets!” Originally published in a Deutsche Grammophon 2-CD set: Wagner Duets, DG 480 7308. Looking back at Tristan und Isolde twenty years after its composition, Wagner told his wife Cosima: “My model was Romeo and Juliet – nothing but duets!” He was invoking Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi which he had conducted […]
MELBOURNE OPERA’S DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG, FEBRUARY 2025.
SOME OBSERVATIONS BY MEMBERS OF OUR SOCIETY
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, ‘The Valkyrie’. Rosemary Cater-Smith
On the 15th and 17th November 2024, the SSO presented two performances of Die Walküre conducted by Simone Young. A small group attended from the Queensland Society and the consensus was that it was one of the most outstanding performances experienced. The singers, without exception, were fantastic, and the performance in concert allowed the interaction […]
WAGNER’S CHORUSES. Peter Bassett
Wagner’s choruses are amongst the glories of his stage works. They are central to the action, not extraneous to it, and the mood and style of each reflects the dramatic imperatives of the work concerned. The aptness of these choruses is illustrated in the final act of Der fliegende Holländer where three contrasting groups interact […]