The Bavarian state opera continues its cycle of new productions of operas by Guiseppe Verdi. After Il Trovatore, Rigoletto and La Forza del Destino, it is now Un ballo in Maschera to get its new presentation, directed by the young German Johannes Erath. Being a talented musician originally, he started later to become a director and worked with Willy Decker and Peter Konwitschny. Once more, the libretto of this fine Verdi opera is rather simple, clear and straight forward. This fast...

Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera of disconnections. Mélisande’s first words are, ‘Ne me touchez pas!’ -- ‘Do not touch me!’ And, indeed, she (and everyone else) remains isolated. Not only physical contact, but emotional and intellectual contact seem impossible throughout the opera. Characters fail to understand their own emotions and fail to communicate what little they do understand. They constantly...

The new production of Richard Wagner's epic story the Ring was a highly expected opera event in 2012 in Munich, and Andreas Kriegenburg's very lively and colourful creation gathered various reactions, but over all high recognition by the audience. It is his very intimate, human and sensible play between the characters, full of gestures, together with a big crowd of background actors for a kind of human-made scenery, which made this production so special. This year, the rivival of...

Puccini's opera has always caused mixed feelings to the audience. Once it has been too much of a fairytale besides a real political and social theme, once it has been musically flat. Nevertheless this is a masterpiece of Italian verismo and musically demanding for all the participants, thus to explore once more at the Bavarian State Opera. Based on a very traditional long played direction of Wolf Busse, scene by Otto Stich - this repertoire spectacle was awaited for its cast. After...