Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

by Richard Wagner

seen at Covent Garden on 28 March 2017

Kasper Holten directs his final production as the Artistic Director of the Royal Opera, featuring Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Walther von Stolzing, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Eva Pogner and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sixtus Beckmesser, with sets designed by Mia Stensgaard and costumes by Anja Vang Kragh. The performance was conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Musically this was a treat, with a rich and finely controlled orchestra, powerful choral singing in the opening chorale (cleverly treated as a concert rehearsal rather than as part of a church service) and the great affirmative welcome to Hans Sachs in the final scene, all of this supporting some great soloists - especially Bryn Terfel in marvellous voice as the genial and worldly-wise cobbler-poet and Johannes Martin Kränzle as the fussy over-ambitious and ultimately thwarted town clerk. The younger leads also sounded great though Walther did not look at all knightly. Hanna Hipp as Magdalene and Allan Clayton as David provided a welcome and amusing contrast to the centre-stage lovers as respectively Eva's maid and Sachs's apprentice.

The Winter's Tale

by Ryan Wigglesworth, libretto after Shakespeare's play

seen at the Coliseum on 3 March 2017

This opera, commissioned by ENO, was conducted by the composer. It featured Iain Paterson as Leontes, Sophie Bevan as Hermione, Samantha Price as Perdita, Leigh Melrose as Polixenes, Anthony Gregory as Florizel and Susan Bickley as Paulina. The production was directed by Rory Kinnear and designed by Vicki Mortimer.

Shakespeare's plays are famously - or notoriously - susceptible to ranges of interpretation. Using one as the basis for an opera is bound to intensify this tendency, because so much must be abandoned or condensed in order to create a manageable libretto. In the case of The Winter's Tale, a play not hitherto transformed into an opera, the process has stripped away almost all the rustic comedy (the character of Autolycus is completely missing), and also a good deal of circumstantial detail. The result is that the opera is even more melancholy than the play, with the emphasis far more on the brooding figure of Leontes than on the revivifying figure of Perdita.