| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 15-Nov-2012 Staatsoper | Gluck's Alceste at the Vienna Staatsoper: Chronicle of a death foretold |
 Alceste is the short and sombre story of a wife who gives her life to save that of her husband, King Admète of Thessaly, a deed which ultimately convinces the gods to reprieve both of them. Gluck, hoping to avoid the over-decorated vocal style then in vogue, set this plot to unadorned vocal lines to give depth to the underlying emotions. When this work premièred in Vienna in 1767, the reactions were mixed, Leopold Mozart calling it a “requiem”. The opera was not a great success until a thoroughly reworked version with a libretto in French premièred in Paris in 1776.Read full review... | |
| 4-Aug-2012 Großes Festspielhaus | La bohème in Salzburg with Netrebko and a tenor surprise |
 When Salzburg Festival director Alexander Pereira stepped onto the stage of the Großes Festspielhaus last night to announce that one of the cast members of La bohème was sick and unable to sing, he faced a chorus of hisses from the audience. Soprano Anna Netrebko, the festival’s biggest non-conductor star, was feeling fine (though as Mimì she would shortly die of consumption). But the excellent tenor Piotr Beczala had decided a mere ten minutes earlier that his vocal cords would not be up to singing Rodolfo that night. We would have to wait forty minutes for a replacement.Read full review... | |
