Opera North: The Magic Flute

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

3/5 from the Torygraph, too - but you have to register to see what they have to say.

[Conchis]

I think the star system (a recent 'innovation') is invidious and has probably done more to discourage people from attending than bad weather or failing public transport. It needs to go!

[Darkbloom]

I think the star system (a recent 'innovation') is invidious and has probably done more to discourage people from attending than bad weather or failing public transport. It needs to go!

Particularly when the star rating doesn't reflect what was written in the review. I don't know if a sub-editor is in charge of that bit, but it can be misleading when a mostly positive review only gets 3/5.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And sung in English? Very hard to justify that, I'd say. Give me original German, or nothing.

Mozart apparently had the same difficulty when he used German instead of Italian.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

An Opera North Magic Flute. I've seen many of these, starting pre-Opera North, when it was Sadlers Wells Touring - the first opera performance I ever attended.

Another had the three boys singing whilst wearing school uniforms, including school caps - a nice touch, I thought.

But the one that stood out was when the Queen of the Night turned out to be an ex-girlfriend! (Well typecast?)

[teamsaint]

[QUOTE=ferneyhoughgeliebte;722290]And another 3/5 from Tim Ashley in ... The Guardian (they sent two reviewers?!):


I doubt it ................

( I'm assuming of course that Fiona Maddocks was there.)

[Once Was 4]

An Opera North Magic Flute. I've seen many of these, starting pre-Opera North, when it was Sadlers Wells Touring - the first opera performance I ever attended.

Another had the three boys singing whilst wearing school uniforms, including school caps - a nice touch, I thought.

But the one that stood out was when the Queen of the Night turned out to be an ex-girlfriend! (Well typecast?)

Opera North was never 'Sadlers Wells Touring' and, indeed, there was never such a company. Sadlers Wells had two companies which both worked part of the time in London and part of the time on tour. A very good friend, and longstanding colleague, of mine was in one of them and he said that they were technically equal but, the one for which he played was very much the inferior in standard and in some ways was considered the 'touring' company.

When Opera North started in 1978 it was called 'English National Opera North' or ENON but was very much based in Leeds although with a much bigger touring circuit than it has now (including some theatres which were nothing like big enough - I can tell a few stories including once playing a sizable chunk of 'Orpheus in the Underworld' from memory as the late, great, Sheila Rex (always resident in Leeds despite her London-based career) managed to fuse all the lights with a defective hair dryer. We did though use a lot of handed down ENO productions of varying vintage and quality and most of the orchestral parts came from the ENO library until our company gradually built up its own (now very extensive - they now lend stuff out themselves to other organisations) library.

As for 'Flutes' I played for many productions of this both at ON and previously at Scottish Opera (where we once toured 'Flute' 'back-to-back' with 'The Marriage of Figaro' for a month. Those were happy days indeed - sheds tear) I do not remember the school uniforms but will look in my programme collection. It's still one of my favourite operas along with 'La Boheme' which we must have done over 200 performances of in my 26 years.

[Pulcinella]

Performance (not sure which) scheduled for Radio 3 on Saturday 30 March (Opera on 3, starting 1830). Might even be live? Just says 'from Leeds Grand Theatre' in the BBC MM March listings.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The current run on this production is due to end in Nottingham on 23rd March, Pulcie (according to the ON website) - and the last LGT performance on 1st (two other performances there before that, on 20th & 22nd Feb).