Royal Opera Season 2024/25

[Belgrove]

The Royal Opera have announced their 2024/25 season although there is no listing online as of yet. The season marks Jakub Hrůša’s assumption to the role of Music Director, although these productions are probably fixed years in advance. He will be reviving Jenůfa, and will likely make Janáček a speciality in future years. A World Premier with Mark-Anthony Turnage’s ‘Festen’, the second instalment in the new Ring Cycle and Semele seem to be the only new productions - no doubt symptomatic of the current state of funding.

Main Stage Works:

The Marriage of Figaro (Cond: Julia Jones)
La Traviata (Cond: Alexander Joel/Richard Heatherington)
Eugene Onegin (Cond: Henrik Nánási)
Fidelio (Cond: Alexander Soddy)
The Tales of Hoffmann (Cond: Antonello Manacorda)
Tosca (Cond: Eun Sun Kim)
La Bohéme (Cond: Speranza Scappucci)
Hansel and Gretel (Cond: Giedré Šlekyté)
Jenůfa (Cond: Hrůša)
Aida (Cond: Daniel Oren)
Festen - (World Premier, Turnage, Dir: Jones, Cond: Gardiner)
Il Trovatore (Cond: Giacommo Sargripanti/Carlo Rizzi)
Turandot (Cond: Rafael Payare/Francesco Ciampa)
Carmen (Cond: Elder/Christopher Willis)
Die Walküre - (New: Dir: Kosky, Cond: Pappano)
Faust (Cond: Maurizio Benini)
Semele - (New: Dir: Mears, Cond: Christian Curnyn)

All tolled it’s a bit underwhelming. Die Walküre is the only ‘must see’, Das Rheingold was an auspicious start to the cycle. I’ll probably go to Semele, despite being a bit underwhelmed by Mears’ take on Jeptha, and Festen out of curiosity (I quite enjoyed Anna Nicole ).

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thanks Belgrove . Any idea what the new productions are amongst these ?

[Belgrove]

Thanks Belgrove . Any idea what the new productions are amongst these ?

I labelled them ‘New’.

[LHC]

I think the official announcement is supposed to take place on 30th, so this may be a bit early.

As well as Festen, Walkure and Semele I think Hoffman will be a new production, and possibly Turandot as well.

Unfortunately, the Tales of Hofmann will be another Damiano Michieletto production, who has so far produced one outstanding production for the Opera House (Cav & Pag) and three complete duds (the 'controversial' and probably unrevivable William Tell, a dreary and unfunny Don Pasquale and the latest Carmen, which I saw on Friday and which manages to be both inept and mind-numbingly boring).

Its rumoured that Tosca will feature Lise Davidsen and Freddie di Tomaso.

[Pulcinella]

Sorry Belgrove: can't resist.

All tolled it’s a bit underwhelming.

Those would be the death of opera funeral bells then?

Thanks for the info.
I wonder which (and how many) will be live streamed to cinemas.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I labelled them ‘New’.

Oh yes there’s so few of them I missed it !

[duncan]

Thanks Belgrove, any hints on the cast for Die Walküre?

[Belgrove]

Thanks Belgrove, any hints on the cast for Die Walküre?

My pleasure duncan. According to the booklet I received:

Wotan - Christopher Maltman
Brünnhilde - Elizabet Strid
Sieglinde - Lise Davidsen
Siegmund - Stanislas de Barbeyrak
Hunding - Solomon Howard
Frika - Marina Prudenskaya
+ a clutch of Valkyries

Maltman and Prudenskaya are continuing their roles.

[Darkbloom]

Admittedly, I haven't been following the comings and goings of the opera world for a while, but I'm sure Covent Garden used to be able to get at least a few fairly well-known conductors to do the new productions (revivals are another matter of course). Glancing over the roster of conductors for the coming season and they seem to be a list of nobodies. The Ring, which is usually. the showpiece for any opera house, hardly boasts a glittering array of names (Lise Davidsen being the exception). Maybe I'm just ignorant and some of these people are rising stars, but I get the distinct impression that they are running things on the cheap a little bit. I saw The Flying Dutchman recently and the conductor for that was just a solid time-beater, nothing more, and I see he's back for Onegin. The Met used to be fairly notorious in the Levine era for having pretty routine conductors and it seems that they ROH is following suit.

[duncan]

Thanks Belgrove.

...The Ring, which is usually. the showpiece for any opera house, hardly boasts a glittering array of names (Lise Davidsen being the exception). Maybe I'm just ignorant and some of these people are rising stars, but I get the distinct impression that they are running things on the cheap a little bit...

How many star Wagnerians are there currently? Nina Stemme sang Brunhilde at the ROH in 2018 and as recently as 2022 in Vienna but doesn't seem to have any future plans for the role. Elizabet Strid was in good if not great voice in the recent Dutchman but is a fine actor and looks the part so I'm hoping she'll rise to the occasion. I hadn't thought of Maltman as being a natural Wotan but he was very good in the Rheingold. We are getting a great Siglinde; Siegmund is a complete unknown to me.

[Master Jacques]

The Ring, which is usually. the showpiece for any opera house, hardly boasts a glittering array of names (Lise Davidsen being the exception). Maybe I'm just ignorant and some of these people are rising stars, but I get the distinct impression that they are running things on the cheap a little bit.

The Opera review of Rheingold made the same point, by pointing to the fact that - breaking with a hundred-year tradition - ROH have decided not to include cast lists from previous revivals in their programme books. The reason? Too many people were pointing to the evident decline in star quality which you rightly note. They need to pay less to singers, when a vastly increased slice of their budget now goes on bureaucracy - including a cohort employed full-time to provide obligatory data to ACE, in order to get the money which employs them. The self-serving system is broken.

[LHC]

I received my season booklet in the post this morning. As others have pointed out, its distinctly underwhelming particularly with regards to casting with lots of 'never heard of them' names in each cast list.

Rather amusingly, the introduction in the booklet states that people who love "the top stars ... won't be disappointed" and that the season continues the Opera House's "300-year tradition of presenting the great singers of the world". As proof of this the writer goes on to name Juan Diego Florez, Sonya Yoncheva, Lise Davidsen and Gerald Finley, after which they rather unfortunately ran out of examples.

[Cockney Sparrow]

For a while now many, a majority of the names of performers at the ROH have not been familiar to me - but I have to say I find them competent or better. Beats the days when known names meant "possibly not at their best" (no doubt for a variety of reasons), "will this tenor's voice last until the end" etc - and star names immediately lead to the thought "will they withdraw from the run before it starts" and "will the date I choose be the one they can't/don't find they can sing". Another consideration as to the "stars" - on the night, will they be much interested or committed to what is going on?

I'm sure money has a lot to do with it but generally since lockdown I think the ROH has served me well with casts that have had fewer frailties and committed and competent, often significantly better, performances.

I too had my doubts about the cast for Rheingold - I had Maltman down as a lieder/oratorio singer not a Wotan. In the event I found I was wrong about him (I think an impression from a War Requiem (IIRC) at the Albert Hall some years ago). The cast gave all round, more than competent - satisfying performances (I went more than once).

Personally I don't feel like being critical of the ROH for the decisions it has to make in this benighted country, given the depths to which it has sunk (not least, thinking about one Culture secretary who was the most transparently philistine and disregarding appointment there could have been). Looking at the Cast Lists there is significant donor funding for most performances and productions, and the ROH stresses its poverty, referring to the necessity of paying back the covid loans.

[Ein Heldenleben]

The Opera review of Rheingold made the same point, by pointing to the fact that - breaking with a hundred-year tradition - ROH have decided not to include cast lists from previous revivals in their programme books. The reason? Too many people were pointing to the evident decline in star quality which you rightly note. They need to pay less to singers, when a vastly increased slice of their budget now goes on bureaucracy - including a cohort employed full-time to provide obligatory data to ACE, in order to get the money which employs them. The self-serving system is broken.

I just don’t think the stars are there as they once were particularly in the heavier Wagner and Verdi spinto roles. There’s a very thorough interesting Yale University thesis which lists the main reasons . From memory

1. The decline in church choir singing in Italy (I bet there are parallels in Germany - when was the last time you heard a Karl Ridderbusch?

2. singers moving too quickly and too young from Mozart to Verdi and damaging their voices.

3. Regie directors who are fairly indifferent to singing and are the prime movers behind
4. loss of scenery flats to bounce the voice off.

The golden age pretty much ended with the retirement of Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers. Lisa Davidsen I think will steer clear of Brunhilde. Bryn Terfel had the makings of a very good Wotan but he’s done something to his voice maybe through attempting the role in the first place.
The days when the Brits could cast a very good Ring with Remedios Hunter and Bailey and a whole host of excellent singers in the Alberich Hagen Gutrune Gunther etc roles are long gone.

Incidentally I’m told that the £10,000 a night fee limit agreed between the major houses is regularly skirted round by charitable role support in Wagner and other big opera nights. . The fees are pretty good even in minor roles but you are locked into weeks of rehearsals for The Ring in a way you aren’t with Figaro,

[Master Jacques]

I just don’t think the stars are there as they once were particularly in the heavier Wagner and Verdi spinto roles ...

That's the point: "we've fewer stars, so let's not advertise the decline by printing the stellar names of the 1930s, or the 1950s-90s". Once the current generation of aging divas and divos has left the room (or at least the auditorium) there'll be even fewer willing to come to London, unfortunately.

There's sense in what you say, though I'm not so sure that the conceptual 'auteurs' (on the way out now) and their designers (likewise) aren't really to be blamed for the lack of singers who can do the business. Those painted flats absorbed more sound than they bounced, which was one reason the Wagner brothers got rid of the things completely at Bayreuth in their epochal 1950s and 1960s productions.

I also think singers are more careful now as to what they sing and when: there's no evidence that careers have shortened in the last twenty years or so. The Church Choir problem is real, but not limited to Italy or Germany of course: gone are the days when a Tom Hemsley could earn his keep (and season his baritone like teak) as a vicar choral at St Pauls, while moonlighting as Aeneas (opposite Flagstaad) at the Mermaid of an evening!

As for Lise Davidsen steering clear of Brunnhilde ... I'll take a spread bet on three to five years before she sings it! Sieglinde is often "just" a stepping stone to that, of course.