The concert at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden was a highlight throughout: Jaroussky and Lezhneva, I Barocchisti and Diego Fasolis with a showcase of works by Pergolesi and Vivaldi left nothing to wish for.
Peur et dégoût à Nancy
by MrAlchemize
Ich fuhr gerade auf die Schnellstraße, als ich mich fragte, was ich hier überhaupt tat. Ich war auf dem Weg zu meiner Kollegin, um sie abzuholen und danach gen Frankreich zu fahren, um – und jetzt wird’s interessant – eine Oper zu besuchen. Ja, ganz recht, eine richtige Oper! Wir reden hier übrigens nicht über eine 08/15-Oper von Richard Wagner oder … äh … Giuseppe Verdi; nein Sir, wir reden hier von einem richtig obskuren Stück aus dem Barock. Den ganz harten Scheiß! Selbst Leute, die in klassischer Musik bewandert sind, sehen mich an, als ob sie sagen möchten: „Okay, ich weiß jetzt nicht, ob du dir das ausgedacht hast, aber ich will mir auch nicht die Blöße geben, zugeben zu müssen, dass du Bauernlümmel etwas kennst, von dem ich nie gehört habe.“
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Bravura In The Face Of Trash
A personal note: I know I am terribly late publishing this. Something always got in the way. For the sake of completeness: Here’s my review. The performance was at the Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, on August 29, 2012.
by Lankin
I had seen the production of Julius Caesar already as a stream from the Pfingsfestspiele; to see it live was something entirely different still. As I wrote down my opinion on the staging before, I will now focus on the singers, and the performance of that night.
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Baroque Stravaganza
by SecondoMe
The whole opera is conceived as real Baroque work of art. The artistic directors/designers or whatever they were called did a great work trying to evoke a baroque show, even if they mixed up a bit different kinds of iconographic models. I don’t exactly understand why they use a Renaissance labyrinth and not a Baroque one, but I can guess the reasons behind. They have chosen a José Ribera painting, another Baroque painting (Monsú Dessiderio’s one) about an explosion in a church and some different sort of visual references in order to create their idea of Baroque, and even if I think they could be more accurate from the historical point of view it worked so well!! I loved the idea of putting some members from the theater’s staff as a support into the scene, it was like telling us: this is only a fake, this is pure artifice! And that’s Baroque! It’s an intellectual creation! I enjoyed so much watching how the singers became their own characters in the opera. I really like this idea of “Work in progress”; it was very effective.
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Noche de música y plumas
– by Biri –
Nancy ha sido el afortunado lugar que ha sido elegido para el estreno de Artaserse. Un lugar acogedor, romántico, estéticamente bello que hasta con la intervención de la lluvia no pudo perder su encanto. Quizás debido a tener unas de las plazas más bellas de Europa, Place Stanislas, o quizás por la amabilidad con la que me han acogido a pesar de mi horrible francés o quizás por la taza de choco cho (leche caliente con 40gr de Nutella fundido en ella)... Seguramente hay muchos factores positivos que han determinado mi más que satisfactoria estancia en esta ciudad y entre ellas està obviamente el motivo por el que he visitado Nancy en primer lugar: La première de Artaserse. ...
The Making Of Artaserse
– By Lankin –
Artaserse - Leonardo Vinci - Nancy, 02. Nov. 2012I’m sure you know that feeling - when you’ve seen a movie, and watch the making-of, the point of view gets tilted. All the actions, the plot, the intensity, can now be watched from an outsider’s point of view. The illusion crumbles; it’s not real, it’s just actors, playing their roles.
Why do we love making-ofs? (Well most of us do.) It must be the change of perspective, and also the promise to see the actors as human beings - to see them differently, and to see more of them than they would actually show if they stayed in character. ...