ROH 2019/2020

[Ein Heldenleben]

The season has been announced at last. Worth waiting for, I'd say, and I fear that my credit card is going to be taking a beating. Too many tempting prospects to list here, but Jaho's Desdemona immediately caught the eye.

The new website is not easy to navigate. I would suggest that you start by scrolling through this page: https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-e...20,winter-1920

Hi UTCT Your credit card will go less far than in past years as the design your own package now only applies to the top priced stalls and amphitheater tickets . That is a bit annoying...


TOP TIP FOR TRISTAN . The act two love duet is set hard left of the stage (as you face the stage).That meant my wife and son in the right lower slips ( on the seating plan ) saw none of it. Stemme was Isolde so it was still worth hearing though..

[Conchis]

Hi UTCT Your credit card will go less far than in past years as the design your own package now only applies to the top priced stalls and amphitheater tickets . That is a bit annoying...


TOP TIP FOR TRISTAN . The act two love duet is set hard left of the stage (as you face the stage).That meant my wife and son in the right lower slips ( on the seating plan ) saw none of it. Stemme was Isolde so it was still worth hearing though..

Isn't that ridiculous? Director and production tema sitting in stalls row H and reasoning that, since their view is fine, everyone else's must be, too.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Michieletto's (for it was he) magnificent Cav/Pag is being revived next season (again with Elena Zilio's heartbreaking Mamma Lucia - impossible to imagine the production without her).

I do agree. I reckon this was the first Cav and Pag I had seen - Zilio's acting made a very strong impression and added a lot...

TOP TIP FOR TRISTAN . The act two love duet is set hard left of the stage (as you face the stage).That meant my wife and son in the right lower slips ( on the seating plan ) saw none of it. Stemme was Isolde so it was still worth hearing though..

Thanks Heldeleben, valuable information, as I intend to book! (I heard Stemme at Glyndebourne; it seems the production (as in Billy Budd) might suffer in the comparison...)

[underthecountertenor]

Hi UTCT Your credit card will go less far than in past years as the design your own package now only applies to the top priced stalls and amphitheater tickets . That is a bit annoying...


TOP TIP FOR TRISTAN . The act two love duet is set hard left of the stage (as you face the stage).That meant my wife and son in the right lower slips ( on the seating plan ) saw none of it. Stemme was Isolde so it was still worth hearing though..

I've never done the design your own package, as I generally don't want the same seat type for every production, but I can see that the new restriction must be annoying.

Good tip re Tristan - for no particular reason I've always favoured the left hand side of the house, and was very relieved when I saw how much I would have missed in Tristan if I'd gone the other way. I don't know anything about the principals for this run, but Bychkov alone should make it worthwhile (and they surely can't be as bad as Gabriele Shout and Fred West for Haitink in 2000).

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just to avoid any ambiguity and my ruining Tristan fans’ evenings : if this is the same candle lit production as last time then low seat numbers in the upper , lower slips and balcony should be avoided for lovers of Act 2 . I remember being asked by ROH to sponsor a candle last time (£5) . I told them I would have been much inclined to do so had the action for large parts of the act not been invisible to my relatives .
I didn’t like the production at all but there was quite a good onstage punch up at the end - rare in Wagner ( Mastersingers excepted) . It was however luxury casting : Iain Patterson as Kurnewal if memory serves .

[Pulcinella]

Just to avoid any ambiguity and my ruining Tristan fans’ evenings : if this is the same candle lit production as last time then low seat numbers in the upper , lower slips and balcony should be avoided for lovers of Act 2 . I remember being asked by ROH to sponsor a candle last time (£5) . I told them I would have been much inclined to do so had the action for large parts of the act not been invisible to my relatives .
I didn’t like the production at all but there was quite a good onstage punch up at the end - rare in Wagner ( Mastersingers excepted) . It was however luxury casting : Iain Patterson as Kurnewal if memory serves .

Clearly they haven't heard of Poundland.

[underthecountertenor]

Just to avoid any ambiguity and my ruining Tristan fans’ evenings : if this is the same candle lit production as last time then low seat numbers in the upper , lower slips and balcony should be avoided for lovers of Act 2 . I remember being asked by ROH to sponsor a candle last time (£5) . I told them I would have been much inclined to do so had the action for large parts of the act not been invisible to my relatives .
I didn’t like the production at all but there was quite a good onstage punch up at the end - rare in Wagner ( Mastersingers excepted) . It was however luxury casting : Iain Patterson as Kurnewal if memory serves .

Recent court reports would suggest that the punch ups in Wagner are more likely to be offstage, in the expensive seats. The verdict should be due any time now. https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/20/lawye...threw-8955618/

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes extraordinary case. Sad to say that standards of behaviour at ROH have definitely deteriorated even though it’s much less cramped. A few months back I was jostled in the cloakroom queue . The opera crowd at my local Vue behave impeccably and are so quiet and respectful of the unhearing artistes even though it’s a cinema...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Clearly they haven't heard of Poundland.

No but these are proper BIG candles - there’s a pic in today’s brochure...

[underthecountertenor]

Yes extraordinary case. Sad to say that standards of behaviour at ROH have definitely deteriorated even though it’s much less cramped. A few months back I was jostled in the cloakroom queue . The opera crowd at my local Vue behave impeccably and are so quiet and respectful of the unhearing artistes even though it’s a cinema...

You're quite right. It astonishes me that so many ROH audience members have so little apparent awareness of people around them, or are quite so determined to ride roughshod over them.

[Conchis]

I've never done the design your own package, as I generally don't want the same seat type for every production, but I can see that the new restriction must be annoying.

Good tip re Tristan - for no particular reason I've always favoured the left hand side of the house, and was very relieved when I saw how much I would have missed in Tristan if I'd gone the other way. I don't know anything about the principals for this run, but Bychkov alone should make it worthwhile (and they surely can't be as bad as Gabriele Shout and Fred West for Haitink in 2000).

Fred West?!?

I think Robert Dean Smith (the tenor I will cross continents to avoid) was paired with Schnout/Shout on that occasion.

The 2002 revival was meant to feature Schnout but she was replaced - fortuitously - by the marvellous but short-lived (in career terms) Lisa Gasteen. Her Tristan was Wolfgang Muller-Lorenz and I can't remember being so fearful for a singer during a performance as on that occasion. The guy just couldn't do it. It actually got quite frightening during the interval before Act 3, because you were dreading the mess he was inevitably going to make of it. In the end, he survived. I worried he was going to get booed (unfair, as he was obviously a late replacement and without him the performance wouldn't have gone ahead) but he only received tepid applause.

People with long memories tell me that CG has never had a satisfactory Tristan production in living memory. Nobody much liked Peter Hall's early seventies production, apparently.

[underthecountertenor]

Fred West?!?

I think Robert Dean Smith (the tenor I will cross continents to avoid) was paired with Schnout/Shout on that occasion.

The 2002 revival was meant to feature Schnout but she was replaced - fortuitously - by the marvellous but short-lived (in career terms) Lisa Gasteen. Her Tristan was Wolfgang Muller-Lorenz and I can't remember being so fearful for a singer during a performance as on that occasion. The guy just couldn't do it. It actually got quite frightening during the interval before Act 3, because you were dreading the mess he was inevitably going to make of it. In the end, he survived. I worried he was going to get booed (unfair, as he was obviously a late replacement and without him the performance wouldn't have gone ahead) but he only received tepid applause.

People with long memories tell me that CG has never had a satisfactory Tristan production in living memory. Nobody much liked Peter Hall's early seventies production, apparently.

The invaluable ROH collections database confirms my recollection that the Tristan with la Shout in 2000 was Jon Fredric [Fred] West. Unforgettable for the wrong reasons. Somehow I had managed to obtain seats near the front of the stalls. West's singing was effortful, but his acting was worse. I regret to say that my friend and I were shaking with suppressed laughter. At the end, a very grande dame who was sitting behind us tapped me on the shoulder and said, rather fiercely I thought, 'were you laughing during that?' Fearing remonstrations, I ruefully admitted that we were, because West's acting was so risible. 'Yes,' she exclaimed, 'he looked like a chipmunk!'

Gasteen in 2002 was, as you say, marvellous. What a shame she burned out so early. My mind seems to have drawn a benign veil over Muller-Lorenz. The archive records that the role of the Shepherd was taken by one 'Alfred Boe'.

For the Loy production in 2009, I went to the penultimate performance in the run. By this time Ben Heppner had burned himself out - as I recall he acted it out whilst Lars Cleveman sang from the wings. Cleveman immediately became by far the best Tristan I've heard at CG (hardly the greatest accolade, I admit). I bought his latest release the next day - a rock album called 'Voices in my Head'. It's not bad at all.

[LHC]

Fred West?!?

I think Robert Dean Smith (the tenor I will cross continents to avoid) was paired with Schnout/Shout on that occasion.

The 2002 revival was meant to feature Schnout but she was replaced - fortuitously - by the marvellous but short-lived (in career terms) Lisa Gasteen. Her Tristan was Wolfgang Muller-Lorenz and I can't remember being so fearful for a singer during a performance as on that occasion. The guy just couldn't do it. It actually got quite frightening during the interval before Act 3, because you were dreading the mess he was inevitably going to make of it. In the end, he survived. I worried he was going to get booed (unfair, as he was obviously a late replacement and without him the performance wouldn't have gone ahead) but he only received tepid applause.

People with long memories tell me that CG has never had a satisfactory Tristan production in living memory. Nobody much liked Peter Hall's early seventies production, apparently.

My first experience of Tristan at Covent Garden was the Peter Hall production with Gwyneth Jones on one of her good days, and the incomparable Jon Vickers as Tristan. Nothing has come close since then, although Stemme and Heppner in the first run of the Loy production (before Heppner lost his voice) were pretty damn good.

[Belgrove]

Interesting to dig out some old programmes of Tristan productions at Covent Garden. 1982 was a Midland Bank prom (remember those?). The programme contains many adverts for cigarettes - how things change. Gwyneth Jones and Jon Vickers were especially memorable whereas Colin Davis' conducting was nothing special. The programme hardly mentions the production team, which was '... Staged by' Jeremy Sutcliffe and Designed by John Bury. It was traditional I recall. Then came the 2000 production by Herbert Wernicke (where T&I were confined to separate boxes and did not touch each other throughout the evening). The director/producers are given far more prominence in the programme by this stage (ads now predominantly restaurants). West & Schnaut were inadequate principals, Haitink's interpretation of the score was the main interest. This was revived with Gasteen and Müller-Lorenz in 2002 and was more satisfactory all round, but still hampered by the poor production. I've never seen the Loy, mainly because Pappano was conducting and I dislike his Wagner. However, next year's revival is conducted by Bychkov whom I saw conduct this at the Proms in 2013, oddly interleaved with the Barenboim Ring. His interpretation was dramatic and worthy of revisiting in the theatre. I'm more drawn by who is conducting rather than who is singing, but seeing Vickers remains an especially vivid memory.

Overall it's a more interesting season than this year, although it still looks like Oliver Mears is working within existing plans and/or occupied in undoing them, it must be like trying to turn around a huge tanker. Jurowski has his belated Covent Garden debut conducting Jenufa. I'll be interested to see Pappano conduct Elektra.

[Stanfordian]

The live cinema screening of 'Don Pasquale' was delightful. Bryn Terfel as the Don Pasquale was made for the comic part. As Norina, Olga Peretyatko developed superbly into the role. Ioan Hotea played Ernesto splendidly displaying a lovely tenor. Stage director Damiano Michieletto and his creative team did well in this contemporary staging.