Welsh National Opera 2012/13

[Orphical]

Ben Heppner is due to sing in a concert performance of Tristan at the Edinburgh Festival this August. Not quite the same thing but might be an indicator of vocal condition. Risky booking on the strength of his appearance though! Well done WNO on publishing a two year plan. Any whispers from Scottish Opera yet?

[Flosshilde]

Not a thing - although as I don't usually buy the Herald I might have missed any gossip or advanced whispers that Michael Tummelty might have heard.

[Hautboiste]

I read the comments here on Ben Heppner before I went to see Tristan und Isolde in Cardiff in May. I'm so glad that I decided to make up my own mind about the merits or demerits of his singing. It was a very enjoyable but very long evening and the singing by soloists and chorus was superb. The off-stage cor anglais player was also definitely worth a mention.

[Richard Tarleton]

I read the comments here on Ben Heppner before I went to see Tristan und Isolde in Cardiff in May. I'm so glad that I decided to make up my own mind about the merits or demerits of his singing. It was a very enjoyable but very long evening and the singing by soloists and chorus was superb. The off-stage cor anglais player was also definitely worth a mention.

The problem at the ROH was that he conked out altogether in Act 3, having been in poor voice throughout, so that it was a relief when he "died" and left the stage to Nina Stemme. He lost his voice altogether and it came out as a sort of strangulated whimper. I have no doubt as to the glories of his voice when on form - I heard his Trojans live in the Barbican, and recently watched the DVD of his Walter at the Met with Levine, and indeed the Sawallisch recording of Meistersinger is my favourite.

[jean]

Very disappointed to discover that while Cardiff, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford etc. are to get the new William Tell and Moise in Egitto, we in Liverpool are to be palmed off with yet another boring Carmen.

[Honoured Guest]

Very disappointed to discover that while Cardiff, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford etc. are to get the new William Tell and Moise in Egitto, we in Liverpool are to be palmed off with yet another boring Carmen.

Similarly, Swansea gets just Carmen, and not William Tell and Moses in Egypt. I guess that the audiences are just too small in Liverpool and Swansea. Is that your experience of previous opera rareties there? Swansea audiences have the option of seeing them at the WMC in Cardiff, and Liverpool audiences may travel to Venue Cymru in Llandudno, 55 miles away.

[aeolium]

Very disappointed to discover that while Cardiff, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford etc. are to get the new William Tell and Moise in Egitto, we in Liverpool are to be palmed off with yet another boring Carmen.

I will be able to get to both the Rossini operas in Cardiff, but my regret is that WNO have in their recent focus on early C19 Romantic opera - three operas by Donizetti last year, two by Rossini in the new season - ignored Weber again, and I think it has been quite a number of years since any opera of his was staged by WNO. David Pountney who directs William Tell claims that "Romantic opera begins with William Tell", but surely Weber's Der Freischutz which is 10 years earlier is entitled to be considered the first great Romantic opera, influencing Berlioz and Wagner. Whatever the problems of staging Weber's operas, the quality of the music demands that they should be performed - at least Der Freischutz and Oberon.