Prima Donna, Sadler's Wells
Artifice and authenticity meet head-on in Rufus Wainwright's first shot at opera
Why write gluey pastiche Massenet and Puccini when you could compose as your flamboyant self? Why collaborate on a cliché-ridden French text when your song lyrics declare themselves so piquantly in English? Rufus Wainwright must have his own reasons for concocting a fantasy of what opera might, or used to, be. Frankly I'd prefer an honest, Mamma Mia!-style confection of the masterly, and undeniably operatic, pop hits from his two Want albums.
theartsdesk Q&A: Opera Directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser
Opera's Gilbert and George on their unique 30-year collaboration as directors
It is rare enough for directors to collaborate in theatre, even rarer in opera. Patrice Caurier (b. Paris, 1954) and Moshe Leiser (b. Antwerp, 1956) began their long collaboration in their 20s. They are now in their 50s, and since that first production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Opéra de Lyon in 1982, they have never worked (or lived) apart. Cohabiting and collaborating, they are opera’s closest equivalent to Gilbert and George.
Production Gallery: Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser at the Royal Opera House
Lavish images from the directorial duo's Covent Garden productions
As co-directors of opera, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser's fidelity to each other's artistic vision is one thing. Their devotion to Rossini is also relatively unusual. Their loyalty to and faith in their designers is almost as deep. In this ravishing set of photographs, memorialising five of their productions at the Royal Opera House, the set designs are all by Christian Fenouillat, costume designs are by Agostino Cavalca and lighting is by Christophe Forey. Click on the images to view them. Read theartsdesk Q&A with Caurier and Leiser.
Interview: Maria Luigia Borsi, singing in the Italian tradition
Soprano talks about Muti, Bocelli and her Wigmore Hall recital
In this era of spectacular divas from Russia, Latvia and Romania, it is often remarked that the Italian lyric soprano is a commodity in distressingly short supply. Hoping to rectify that sorry situation is Tuscany’s Maria Luigia Borsi, who will be making her London debut at the Wigmore Hall on Sunday, singing a luxuriant programme of Puccini, Catalani and Mascagni.
Angela Gheorghiu, Royal Festival Hall
Gheorghiu spearheads Romanian invasion of the South Bank
The famously tempestuous Romanian soprano is, we learn, living a separate life from her husband Roberto Alagna. If Opera's Most Romantic Couple is no more, will Brand Angela be terminally damaged? Surely a showcase performance in the South Bank's International Voices season would be just the thing to rally the faithful and reaffirm Ms Gheorghiu's spectacular star quality, but I must admit that by the time we reached the interval, I was beset with gnawing doubt.
Turandot, English National Opera, London Coliseum
Mamma Mia meets Kill Bill2 in a sharply inventive new production
It’s a let-down when a new production of an opera that spends two acts feeling dazzlingly invigorating and clever collapses in a careless mess in the third. My guess is that a key scene for the concept of English National Opera’s Turandot is when Ping, Pang and Pong - three very grand court officials - turn out to be Chinese cooks sneaking smokes up the fire escape at the Emperor Palace restaurant. It's a sharp idea, generating a sensationally visual production, but that fire escape's got to lead somewhere, and in the end it's nowhere.