LA TRAVIATA (Glyndebourne Festival Opera)*****

 

By Megan

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcIwYTkaB0M

Available until: Sunday 29^th August 2021, 5pm

Glyndebourne Festival Opera is going ahead this year which is brilliant but they are still very kindly putting some of their previous productions on their YouTube channel for us to enjoy. Or get very sad about in this case.

La traviata is one of the best-known operas with really gorgeous, emotional music and a story which is easy to follow and which actually makes sense most of the time. (There are subtitles if you don’t speak Italian.) It is based on Alexandre Dumas fils’ novel La Dame aux Camélias. The opera is set in the past world of courtesans and consumption but I think it is very relatable to the present day. A lot of people know what it’s like to be separated from someone you love and I think the whole world knows how cruel illness can be.

FALSTAFF (Wiener Staatsoper)****

  

By Cal 

Link: https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/52bb9a84-0a6d-4cf2-81f3-dda03a009ac1/play 

Available until: 23^rd February, about 6pm

Giuseppe Verdi isn’t really best-known for his comedies. His second opera, Un giorno di regno, was a comedy, but that one bombed. Verdi really wanted another go at writing a comedy, but everyone wanted him to write tragedies. Gioachino Rossini even said he didn’t think Verdi was capable of writing a comedy.

RIGOLETTO (Wiener Staatsoper)****

 

By Imogen 

Link: https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/1c3e3dee-79a9-4114-a6f9-e497c66758d9 

Available until: 17^th March at about 6pm

Rigoletto is about an ugly old hunchback, his adopted daughter and her really bad taste in men. He’s cute and everything but I really wouldn’t bother. I mean I’ve heard of students pretending to be dukes but dukes pretending to be students? Not in this lifetime.

LA TRAVIATA (Wiener Staatsoper)*****

  

By Louise 

Link: https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/9cf2fd88-22e0-429f-bd18-1fbb01629585/play

Available until: 9^th March at about 6pm

Most of the productions Wiener Staatsoper have been making available on their website are old productions which have been filmed, but every so often, they’ve been putting on new productions which are streamed live. Their Le nozze di Figaro a couple of weeks ago was really brilliant and so is La traviata.

OTELLO (Wiener Staatsoper)*****

  

By Megan 

Link: https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/734c2237-ebe1-4cdd-91e5-498327ce194a/play

Available until: 4^th February at about 6pm

I don’t always know why I like this story so much when such terrible things happen but I do love it a lot and I think Verdi’s opera tells the story of Shakespeare’s play really well.

LA TRAVIATA (Teatro Real Madrid/OperaVision)****

 

By Imogen

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SqpcFOchjA

Available until: 14^th May 2021

I’d never even heard of Teatro Real Madrid. If you’d asked me what it was I’d have guessed that it was the Bernabeu, the stadium where Real Madrid play, their theatre of dreams. Spain doesn’t exactly have a great operatic tradition. It is a very musical nation but there aren’t many operas written in Spanish. Even the ones with a Spanish feel like Carmen aren’t written in Spanish.

IL TROVATORE (National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing/OperaVision)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aka3KCx847A

Available until: 21^st October 2020

There isn’t much time to watch this, but it is a really enjoyable performance of an opera which is very well-known but which I think I’ve only seen once.

It is a really lovely production and because it’s filmed, we have the opportunity to see the set up close and it’s beautiful. Hugh De Ana is the director, set designer and costume designer for the production and that’s not a surprise as the set and costumes go so well together. The set is full of beautiful greys and dark blues and that is echoed in the singers’ clothes. The beautiful colours show the romance and love in the story, but the set is full of angles and shadows which show how difficult it is for the three central characters in particular.