Harry Fehr’s New Production of The Elixir of Love at the London Coliseum

The British composer Thomas Adès has gained international reputation with his opera compositions of The Tempest premiered 2004 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Powder her Face premiered in 1995 at the Cheltenham Festival as well as conductor and pianist. He has been committed by the Salzburg Festival for their yearly contemporary opera. Together with director Tom Cairns, Thomas Ades has created the libretto based on Luis Buñuel script and film El ángel...

Jean Philippe Rameau has been a highly regarded composer during the French Baroque period and an important representative of the special French genre Opéra-Ballet, where music, stage and dance play an equal importance. The story is a typical baroque play of intrigues, jealousy, fidelity and love which can take place everywhere and does not really have any content. Les Indes galantes are sent over the exotic world to explore human relations of love, arriving in Peru,...

The Love of Danae is one of Richard Strauss masterpieces of the later period. He himself could not participate to the world premier in 1952 at the Salzburg Festival, after the original date in 1944 was cancelled at the same place due to the failed attack of Hitler. The opera in three acts is defined by the composer as a comedy of Greek mythology and consists of fine romantic music, in one big flow, missing arias or characteristic passages. So far, this opera did not achieve similar...

This Magic Flute’s extraordinary production coming from Berlin’s Komische Oper will remain without any doubt a milestone, a reference point in the long history of stagings of this great Mozartian title. The production, which was seen in Madrid this present season and is now visiting Barcelona after having toured with big success through many great theatres, stands out for its originality and pertinence of concept as well as for its powerful visual impact. At last, The Magic...

As an extra gift we had the new critical edition by Fabrizio della Seta (with certain changes). Thus the roles of Enrichetta and –more- Arturo, but also those of Riccardo and Elvira become more alive (a pity that they didn’t include the final rondo written for Malibran, and more since here we had a real chance). Of course the risks of a still less dramatic structure –a problem with this opera since its first performance- are more evident, but the artistic interest of this...

It is still a rare possibility to assist to this opera, even if it was once a big success in the whole Europe after its world premiere in Paris 1835. The subject of this Grande Opera seems more than actual and modern again. It demonstrates the fight between religions, prosecution and religious discrimination, linked with the fate of two strong competing men opposed and confronted by fatal love, faith power and a virtuous girl. It is a dark story with a tragic end : dark and...