WNO season 2016-2017

[aeolium]

The details of WNO's next opera season from autumn 2016 to summer 2017 are available:

https://www.wno.org.uk/news/welsh-national-opera’s-1617-season-operas-announced

I'm not so interested in the Puccini or the Strausses' operas, but am in the two less familiar works, Frank Martin's Le Vin Herbé and André Tchaikowsky's The Merchant of Venice. There is a review of a recording of Martin's opera on the Tristan and Isolde legend here (the reviewer's name rings a bell ) and some information about the Tchaikowsky work and forthcoming WNO production here.

[Richard Tarleton]

Full circle for Rebecca Evans - she was a lovely Sophie in 1994 (in a sumptuous cast led by Sheri Greenwald and Susan Graham ). She was in excellent voice the other week in 4 Last Songs and Mahler 4. She is tiny We saw WNO's next iteration of Der R in 2000 in which the initial rumpy-pumpy was between Katerina Karnéus () and Deborah Riedel.

[jean]

I've just received my brochure.

My relief at seeing that we were at least to get the Shakespeare400 Autumn season was quickly dispelled - we are only to have Kiss me Kate. Just one production for the entire year. No other venue fares so badly. I am furious.

[french frank]

I've just received my brochure.

My relief at seeing that we were at least to get the Shakespeare400 Autumn season was quickly dispelled - we are only to have Kiss me Kate. Just one production for the entire year. No other venue fares so badly. I am furious.

That does seem a let-down. We are at least getting the Merch. and Macbeth - as well as three performances of Kiss Me Kate - as the Bard said: 'Put money in thy purse'.

Interesting that for Le vin herbé in the summer The Hippo is only using the stalls and the grand circle. No upper circle, slips or boxes. I suppose they want to make sure the (sparse?) audience is all bunched up together (in the 'spensive seats).

[subcontrabass]

Interesting that for Le vin herbé in the summer The Hippo is only using the stalls and the grand circle. No upper circle, slips or boxes. I suppose they want to make sure the (sparse?) audience is all bunched up together (in the 'spensive seats).

March 28 = Summer?

[french frank]

March 28 = Summer?

I did not notice the date - the leaflet that came this morning for the Hippo had it listed under SUMMER 2017.

[underthecountertenor]

WNO is bringing the Tchaikowsky Merchant of Venice to the ROH in July 2017.

[french frank]

WNO is bringing the Tchaikowsky Merchant of Venice to the ROH in July 2017.

I went to see this last night in Bristol. I'm not surprised that Bristol tends not to get the interesting stuff: only one performance and the theatre was only about 5/8 full

That aside, I read the various reviews and think they were probably quite fair. If one didn't know that this wasn't in the standard repertoire, one could think that it would be. The music wasn't 'aggressively' modern, but certainly 'modern'. Bits of it sounded a bit … reminiscent - I was disappointed that I missed the Elizabethan echoes said to be present at certain moments, though the gigue was plain. At any rate, I thought the score worked well dramatically.

I also felt the production worked quite well too: a bit like the music it shifted from 20th c. to Elizabethan, and with nice little touches: Salerio and Solanio as ultra-intrusive paparazzi (a photographer and reporter, the latter often 'interviewing', and taking notes). Shylock reads about Antonio's disaster in a newspaper.

I was most interested to see how the well-known story would be treated. The key theme was racial prejudice and it didn't seem to do any disservice to Shakespeare's story in making Shylock the victim rather than the oppressor. I was glad to see the black baritone Lester Lynch singing the part of Shylock in this production, delivering a double punch - more effective than some sort of 'stage' Jew. The jostling, jeering and insults made Shylock's character both understandable and sympathetic. A subtlety that I may have invented by inattention (I'd be interested to know!) when Portia has delivered her 'The quality of mercy' speech, Shylock appeared to be slinking towards the door, as if the speech had won him over. But Portia makes an almost throwaway comment about 'the Jew' at which he starts and returns to press his demand. (Surely too effective to be my own creation?)

One of the reviewers queried the fact that Tchaikowsky had written the part of Antonio for a countertenor. I felt it's what he wanted to do and was effective - just that Martin Wölfel's voice was not always strong enough to carry over the orchestra. But even that seemed to work as part of Keith Warner's concept of the character as a slightly wimpish neurotic.

The only bit that I found dramatically unsatisfactory was the epilogue (a bit like Don Giovanni): after the 'crucial trial scene', as Tchaikowsky described it, the tying of knots was the routine 'dénouement' which turned the opera from a tragedy into Shakespearean comedy. From Shakespeare's point of view, there weren't enough deaths to make it a tragedy but we tend to consider lives often more tragic than deaths.

Just a pity there was no 'role' for the WNO's legendary chorus.

[teamsaint]

Anybody been to La boheme this time round?
We managed to get to Southampton last night, and thought it was a fine performance. Excellent singing throughout. The standout elements were the Latin Quarter scene, which was well thought out and beautifully presented. The other highlight, amongst other excellent performances, was Lauren Fagan as Musetta.