| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 6-Dec-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | 120 years on: Meyerbeer's Robert le diable returns to Covent Garden |
 COOPER2.jpg) Robert le diable’s 1831 opening was perhaps the most successful opera première of all time. Meyerbeer was lauded by luminaries like Chopin, Dumas, Balzac and Heinrich Heine, the opera was played in 69 cities in its first two years and spawned an entire genre of French Grand Opera. Why, then, has it fallen from grace, last night’s Covent Garden production being the first since 1890?
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| 6-May-2012 Opéra Bastille | Rustic chivalry and clowns in Paris: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci |
 In each case, you know the murder is coming. In each case the music is explosive and closes the opera: there is nothing left to say except Canio's simple words: "La commedia è finita." Thus ends opera's most celebrated double bill: Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, a pair of short operas that have been performed together almost exclusively since 1893, known affectionately as "Cav and Pag" to an older generation of operagoers.
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| 2-Nov-2011 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Eglise Gutiérrez sparkles in a sleepy Covent Garden Sonnambula |
 COOPER.jpg) When you discover your bride-to-be in another man's bed on the eve of your wedding day, the excuse "Darling, I must have been sleepwalking" rates somewhere near the same level of credibility as "Sir, the dog ate my homework." But hey, this is opera, and bel canto opera at that. You didn't come to Bellini's La Sonnambula for the story and the drama: you came here for the singing.
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| 26-Oct-2010 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at Covent Garden |
 COOPER.jpg) Gounod's Roméo et Juliette isn't exactly a rarity, but it is no longer one of the stalwarts of the opera repertoire, a position which it certainly occupied during the Victorian era (there were 102 performances at the Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris in the first year of its life, followed by 291 performances at the Opéra-Comique in the next twenty). The Royal Opera's present production dates back to 1994, and is being revived for just the second time.
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