Operas

In the sweeping visual and sonic landscape of Mozart’s Idomeneo, presented at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the production achieves a rare synthesis of antique myth and contemporary theatricality. At the helm of this monumental staging is Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, whose choreography binds the performers not merely to movement, but to the very life-breath of the drama. Interwoven with his kinetic vision are the striking installations of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, whose endless expanses of red thread dominate the physical space...

The staging of Georg Friedrich Händel’s final opera, Deidamia, at the International Händel Festival Göttingen, in a co-production with the Wexford Festival Opera, offers a fascinating encounter with the composer’s late theatrical output. Premiered originally in London in 1741, Deidamia occupies a unique position in Händel’s oeuvre, blending the conventions of opera seria with a lighter, almost ironic dramatic touch that anticipates the stylistic shifts of the mid-18th century. Paolo Antonio Rolli’s...

Verdi’s La Traviata has long stood as an unrelenting test of soprano artistry, requiring three distinctly divergent vocal personalities across three acts: the dazzling, diamond-bright coloratura of an untamed Parisian courtesan in Act I, the austere and dramatic middle-register pathos of emotional martyrdom in Act II, and the haunting, hushed pianissimos of a woman fading into the ether in Act III. In Richard Eyre’s production for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, designed by Bob Crowley and...