The pleasure principle
Lisette Oropesa casts a spell as the titular sorceress in the Royal Ballet and Opera’s fizzy revival of Alcina.
Orsolya Gyárfás
Based in Budapest, Orsolya Gyárfás has been publishing opera reviews in English and Hungarian since 2016. Currently wrapping up a PhD focusing on Metastasian opera seria; general interests and obsessions include all things Baroque, queer, Regietheater, and any given combination of the above.
Wedding crashers
Louise Alder enchants in the comically-inclined revival of Claus Guth’s production of Semele at the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Garden leave
Brigitte Fassbaender’s acid-laced production of La finta giardiniera leans into the absurdities of Mozart’s early dramma giocoso.
Holding out for a hero
Clémence de Grandval’s Mazeppa gets the superhero treatment in Dortmund.
She’s no basic britch
Samantha Hankey’s Composer is the standout in the Wiener Staatsoper’s episodically sublime Ariadne auf Naxos revival.
Gender? I hardly know her!
Christof Loy’s production of Pablo Luna’s gender-bending Orientalist farce Benamor proves to be irresistible.
Dad, I’m seria
Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra strike (almost) all the right notes in their new recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo.
Psyché’d up
It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: “Charmante Psyché!”
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).