Lise Davidsen makes her role debut as “Tosca” at the Bergen International Festival Ever since Lise Davidsen hit upon the world of opera in 2015, when she won not one but three major competitions - Operalia, Hans Gabor Belvedere and in her home country, the Queen Sonja Competition – she has been a singer to watch. With her youthful dramatic full-bodied soprano, she has since enchanted audiences on the world's great stages in roles such as Sieglinde in...

Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 French-language play, Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca of 1900 not only occurs in a specific time and place, but on a precise date that can be linked to an historical event. All of the action takes place during the afternoon, evening and early morning of 17 and 18 June 1800, following the Battle of Marengo between Napoleon’s army and Austrian forces. The Austrians were initially triumphant and sent news of victory back to Rome, but the...

Palermo has a spectacular location along the tyrrhenian coast line, and right in the middle of the city, resides Italy's biggest opera house with the appropriate name Teatro Massimo. It is a classical building, a copy of a Greek temple, and one can well imagine what a feeling it was to enter in such a temple by climbing the stairs to the entrance of this massive building. It was openend in 1897 and witnessed the glory and wealth of the city after a construction period of 20 years....

Bregenz is always a big spectacle. Everything seems to be gigantic for the 7000 visitors of the so called Seebühne, the biggest opera stage built on a vast platform on Lake Constance. The audience arrives from all over the world demonstrating the international reputation this festival has achieved in its long lasting existence for technically nearly perfect sound installations, spectacular stagedesign and a pittoresque setting along the lakeshore. After a hot summer day, some winds...

After days of intensive negotiations, strike initiativesn and protest demonstrations, there was finally green light for this new production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Budget reductions, restructuring plans with layoffs and general political tensions led to a confrontation between syndicates, employees and workers, on one side, and management and politicians, on the other side, culminating in the acclaimation to close the opera house totally by the Lord mayor of Rome if this Premiere...

And it finally happened : I always had some kind of absurd, if not obscene perception in light of ever more expensive scenery and costumes in any new La Boheme production where ever the opera had been performed. How much money can an opera company possibly afford to spend faking the atmosphere of poverty and misery ? And what remains from a perfectly sung performance today ? A little bit of kitsch and a group of immaculately singing stars, possibly a sensitive orchestra sound ?...