| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 13-Oct-2012 Civic Opera House | Elektra opens Lyric Opera of Chicago's new season with a shriek |
Between acts, and between shows, the stage at Chicago’s Civic Opera House is usually blocked from view by a solid mural painted with baroque figures in gold – perhaps the gaudiest feature of an already fussily ornate hall. The gilt-painted screen was up, however, for Elektra, the first show of the Lyric Opera’s new season (along with Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, which runs concurrently).Read full review... | |
| 3-Aug-2012 Haus für Mozart | Ariadne auf Naxos dismantled at the Salzburg Festival |
Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos was first performed in 1912, in a production directed by Max Reinhardt. Unlike the version usually seen today, this first Ariadne was a long-winded play-opera-ballet hybrid, incorporating a full production of Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme with dances to incidental music by Strauss followed by the short opera. Less than a decade later these three men would found the Salzburg Festival, so it seems only appropriate that the festival is celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Ariadne.Read full review... | |