Andrea Chénier

by Umberto Giordano

seen 26 January 2015

Covent Garden's first production of this opera in about 30 years stars Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, with Eva-Maria Westbroek as Maddalena de Coigny and Željko Lučić as Carlo Gérard. It is directed by David McVicar and conducted by Antonio Pappano.

The opera concerns the poet Andrea Chénier who, though supportive of the French Revolution, was critical of the Jacobin Terror, and who was eventually executed just days before the fall of Robespierre in 1794. Robespierre famously wrote on the execution order 'Même Platon a banni les poètes de sa République', a statement scrawled across the bloodstained tricoleur used as a curtain drop between scene changes. A romantic interest, in which Maddalena de Coigny is loved by both Chénier and Gérard, is an invention of the opera.  Gérard was once a servant on the Coigny estate, but he rises to political importance as a Jacobin; Maddalena, however, only has eyes for Chénier and goes with him to his death; Gérard is powerless to save them.

The Merry Widow

by Franz Lehar

seen by live streaming from The Metropolitan Opera New York on 17 January 2015

The Met's new production of 'The Merry Widow' is directed with great style and verve by Broadway's Susan Stroman and conducted by Andrew Davis. Renee Fleming sang the role of the widow Hanna Glawari, Nathan Gunn the reluctant suitor Count Danilo Danilovitch, Thomas Allen the ambassador Baron Mirko Zeta, Kelli O'Hara his wife Valencienne and Alek Shrader her would-be lover Camille de Rosillon. Carson Elrod provided extra comedy as the hapless aide Njegus. All had great presence served by sumptuous costumes and grand but deliberately stagey settings which presented a theatrical confection of Paris in la belle epoque.

Un Ballo in Maschera

by Giuseppe Verdi

seen 6 January 2015

A new production at Covent Garden directed by Katharine Thoma with Joseph Calleja as Riccardo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Renato and Liudmila Monastyrska as Amelia.

The piece exists in several versions occasioned by the objections of various Neapolitan and Roman censors at the time that the opera was being composed. Sometimes the male leads are called Gustavo and Anckarström to reflect the fact that the opera's plot is based on the assassination of King Gustavus III of Sweden. This production uses the 'American' names (the accepted original version was set in Boston), but in this production the court is European - not to say Austro-Hungarian - and it is set just prior to the First World War.