Janacek: "From the House of the Dead"; Opera on 3, Sat, 30/6/18; 6:30pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Mark Wigglesworth conducts Covent Garden forces, with Willard White and Johan Reuter amongst the ensemble cast. Donald MacLeod introduces the work, with expert commentary by Nigel Simeone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b86rdv

Apparently, this is the ROH's first ever production of this great opera, something I find literally incredible - can this really be the case?! What took them so long??!!

[richardfinegold]

Mark Wigglesworth conducts Covent Garden forces, with Willard White and Johan Reuter amongst the ensemble cast. Donald MacLeod introduces the work, with expert commentary by Nigel Simeone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b86rdv

Apparently, this is the ROH's first ever production of this great opera, something I find literally incredible - can this really be the case?! What took them so long??!!

Someone should Czech it out

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Someone should Czech it out

I - just hope they don't find it too Camp.

[Bryn]

I - just hope they don't find it too Camp.

I think the bird has flown on that one.

[makropulos]

I think the bird has flown on that one.

Not in this production... The bird was a basketball player.

[makropulos]

Apparently, this is the ROH's first ever production of this great opera, something I find literally incredible - can this really be the case?! What took them so long??!!

It's certainly the case. Sadler's Wells/ENO have had a couple of productions, WNO have the superb Pountney production revived last year, Opera North had a very good one with Roderick Williams a few years ago, but the ROH has never got round to it until this year.

[Bryn]

Not in this production... The bird was a basketball player.

Would not a ski-jumper or golfer have been more apposite?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not in this production... The bird was a basketball player.

- one of the Toronto Raptors, perhaps?

(I'm still jaw-slackened that the ROH has never done this work before!)

[Conchis]

This will be much better experienced on the radio.

The Covent Garden production was beyond dreadful: a demented pervert of a director let loose on a talented cast. God-awful!

[makropulos]

This will be much better experienced on the radio.

The Covent Garden production was beyond dreadful: a demented pervert of a director let loose on a talented cast. God-awful!

Absolutely - listening to it will be far more rewarding than looking at it was.

[richardfinegold]

Somehow on Opera in Czech featuring characters in a Siberian Prison singing about the crimes they have committed just may not appeal to audiences whose idea of a good time at the Opera is La Boheme...but I could be wrong....

[makropulos]

Somehow on Opera in Czech featuring characters in a Siberian Prison singing about the crimes they have committed just may not appeal to audiences whose idea of a good time at the Opera is La Boheme...but I could be wrong....

Speaking for myself, I think you are wrong - I can have a very good time at Bohème and From the House of the Dead!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not at all sure that witnessing a young woman dying from a wasting disease could ever be described as "a good time".

[richardfinegold]

I'm not at all sure that witnessing a young woman dying from a wasting disease could ever be described as "a good time".

Well someone has to die in every Opera, right?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well someone has to die in every Opera, right?

Figaro, Flute, Fidelio, Meistersinger, Gawain are some exceptions. It depends how you get yer jollies, I s'ppose - I'm more of an "incestuous siblings" chap, messel'n.