Archive

04/05/04 - 05/06/04

This comedy of manners, Arabella , was a long-cherished dream ofStrauss and von Hofmannsthal come true: an opera about fashionable19th-century Vienna that would be a match for its predecessor, Der Rosenkavalier , in...
Composer: Richard Strauss
Conductor: Ivan Törzs
Director: Francisco Negrin

27/03/04 - 28/04/04

Idomeneo, re di Creta

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With this Idomeneo , Mozart follows in the footsteps of Gluck’sreform of the Italian opera seria. The contemplative nature of theserious Baroque opera makes places for music drama full of action andmomentum, with arias and recitatives...
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor: Gerard Korsten
Director: David McVicar

22/02/04 - 10/03/04

Il Pirata

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Bellini’s "Il Pirata" is considered the prototype of the early RomanticItalian opera. Situated in the 13th century at the time of the bloodyuprising of Sicily against the Angevins, this story has a fewremarkable parallels with Verdi’s Luisa Miller: a...
Composer: Vincenzo Bellini
Conductor: Ivan Törzs

03/02/04 - 07/03/04

Kát'a Kabanová

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Like "Jenufa", "Kát’a Kabanová" is set in a small and stiflingcommunity that denies its members most forms of self-fulfilment. Kát’awants to escape from her loveless marriage with the spineless,mother-dominated merchant Tichon and begins an affair with Boris, theonly man...
Composer: Leoš Janácek
Conductor: Friedemann Layer
Director: Robert Carsen

09/12/03 - 18/01/04

Hänsel und Gretel

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With his first work for the opera stage, Engelbert Humperdinck startedoff a tradition of fairytale operas in German. Based on the famousstory by the Grimm brothers, "Hänsel und Gretel" stands midway betweenthe simplicity of the folksong and the orchestral...
Composer: Engelbert Humperdinck
Conductor: Stefan Klingele
Director: Andreas Homoki

31/10/03 - 02/12/03

Les Contes d'Hoffmann

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The life and work of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann could only yield akaleidoscopic and fantastic opera. In Offenbach’s opera, variousstories by the German Romantic writer and composer are woven together,so that their bizarre characters meet and mingle. Hoffmann is...
Composer: Jacques Offenbach
Conductor: Patrick Fournillier
Director: David McVicar

29/10/03 - 07/11/03

Achilleus

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Wim Henderickx ventures into the Iliad’s theatre of war. Achilleus issulking and refuses to take part in the battles. Not even Odysseus orAias can talk him into it. But when his bosom friend Patroklos, wearingAchilleus’ armour, is killed by...
Composer: Wim Henderickx
Conductor: Michel Tilkin
Director: Jacob Schokking

20/09/03 - 21/10/03

Luisa Miller

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As in Verdi’s other operas to librettos by Friedrich Schiller, "Luisa Miller" centres on the conflict between individual freedom and political power. Luisa Miller, a middle-class girl, is forced to openly forsake her love for Rodolfo, the son of...
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Conductor: Ivan Törzs
Director: Guy Joosten

10/06/03 - 13/07/03

La Traviata

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‘La Traviata’ is both the last opera in what is known as GiuseppeVerdi’s ‘trilogia popolare’ or ‘popular trilogy’ (the other two being‘Rigoletto’ and ‘Il Trovatore’) and the last work of his that he stillcomposed in what critics have called...
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Conductor: Ivan Törzs
Director: Martin Duncan

23/03/03 - 22/04/03

Ariodante

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Georg Friedrich Händel wrote about forty Italian operas for the London theatres. Among them, "Ariodante" is definitely a masterpiece, even though the reputation of this musical drama set in medieval Scotland was long overshadowed by his better-known operas "Alcina",...
Composer: Georg Friedrich Händel
Conductor: Christoph Poppen
Director: David Alden

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