“Anyone looking for orgiastic obscenity in Calixto Bieito‘s production of Carmen at the London Coliseum, will be bitterly disappointed, writes Rupert Christiansen.” [The Telegraph]
Deborah Orr (“one of Britain’s leading social and political commentators”) doesn’t know much about opera, but she does know she prefers opera to al fresco gay sex. At least I think that’s what she’s talking about in The Guardian.
“Italian opera has never been more popular. It has also never been in greater need of Italian voices. No matter how good the alternatives, a home-grown voice, properly schooled, transforms the sound of Verdi. It is not just the diction or timbre. It is the tradition . . . . Nicholas Hytner’s staging … remains earthbound. Why is it that successive National Theatre directors, upon entering the Royal Opera House, automatically capitulate to operatic convention?” [Financial Times]
Cher Public