DON GIOVANNI (Royal Opera)*****

 

By Megan

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/don-giovanni/videos/don-giovanni-1

Available until: 15^th August 2021

Don Giovanni is not like Mozart’s other main characters. There are some who do things which aren’t the best idea like the characters in Così fan tutte. There are characters who get themselves into really serious difficulties like the title character in Idomeneo (who makes a promise he really regrets) and Tito in La clemenza di Tito (who expects his best friend not to want to kill him). Even in the lighter operas, the characters get themselves into serious trouble. But we like all these main characters and we hope for a happy ending for them.

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS/MAHAGONNY SONGSPIEL (Royal Opera)***

  

By Cal

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/the-seven-deadly-sins-mahagonny-songspiel/videos/the-seven-deadly-sins-mahagonny-songspiel 

Available until: 9^th May

The last two years at the ROH are hardly what the Jette Parker Young Artists would have expected and hoped for. There has been very limited opportunity to work alongside seasoned professionals or to play roles in large-scale, well-known operas, and we can’t dismiss the impact of the absence of the audience: not just the instant positive feedback but the energy they give the singers throughout the performance, just by being there.

AT THE STATUE OF VENUS (Royal Opera)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWs4LDHmnOc

Available until: 24^th November 2020

For Meet the Young Artists Week, the Royal Opera have produced three short works for solo female voice. None were written as operas – this is a song, though it is nearly half an hour long. They have all, though, been staged as operas and they work very well.

ARIANNA A NAXOS (Royal Opera)*****

 

By Dave

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPOpj8UfNkE

Available until: 24^th November 2020

Possible trigger warning: fake blood

As an opera fan, you get to hear and see new and exciting singers all the time and it’s one of the best things about being an opera fan but every so often, you discover a singer who is not just truly exceptional but unlike any other singer you’ve seen before. It’s especially exciting when the singer is young and almost certain to get a lot better. Stephanie Wake-Edwards impressed me in her recent Wigmore Hall recital with Allan Clayton and in the Royal Opera’s Juke Box 1. This performance only seems to confirm her star status and incredible potential.

LA DAME DE MONTE-CARLO (Royal Opera)****

 

By Emma

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-RFhLrnH6I

Available until: 24^th November 2020

This is actually a sung monologue for soprano and orchestra but here it is performed with a pianist and staged. It is often performed alongside La voix humaine (which Welsh National Opera has filmed as part of lockdown) and was written for the same soprano.

JUKE BOX 1 (Royal Opera)****

 

By Tommy (and some of the younger bloggers)

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04nppOsfdig

Available until: The video will be available for about a month. However, if you wish to vote, you’ll need to do that before midday on Thursday 29^th October.

The Royal Opera has had a Young Artist programme for most of the current century. A small group of talented young singers spend two years working at the Royal Opera House, singing small roles (and occasionally leading roles) and understudying others. They also have a concert at the end of each year and certainly, in the past, they have been given the opportunities to perform recitals at the opera house too.

NEW DARK AGE (Royal Opera)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/new-dark-age/videos/new-dark-age-part-2 (it says Part 2 but the whole performance is here) £10 including tax

Available until: Monday 23^rd November 2020

New Dark Ages is made up of several works, divided into two halves. The first hour of the performance is the chamber opera The Knife of Dawn, composed by Hannah Kendall to a libretto by Tessa McWatt, with poems by Martin Carter. Martin Carter is played by singer Martin Braithwaite, who carries the whole opera almost on his own.

4/4 (Royal Opera)****

 

By Cal

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/4-4-1/videos/4-4?_ga=2.3104821.488861402.1602970904-1496587806.1598986963

Available until: Sunday 15^th November 2020

A week after the Royal Ballet returned to the stage with a number of extracts, it was the turn of the Royal Opera.

None of the four works performed are strictly operas. Two were cantatas (though very different in style), one was a song with orchestra and the other is rather difficult to classify, but I would say it’s more like a song cycle than anything else. The cantatas and the song cycle have characters but are not usually staged. The song is usually sung in concert with an orchestra and is not characterised at all.

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA***/PAGLIACCI**** (Royal Opera)

                                                                 By Imogen

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/cavalleria-rusticana-pagliacci-2015/videos/cavalleria-rusticana-pagliacci-2015 £3

Available until: 9 October 2020

Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are short operas of about 70 and 75 minutes long and they’re famous for being performed together. Pagliacci was written when the composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo saw Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and thought he could do that too. And he did. Better than Mascagni. But Cav & Pag (as some lazy people call them even though there’s no G sound in Pagliacci if you say it right, it’s Pal-yee-AR-chi) were linked from that moment and they go together like me and Jordan Henderson. Or me and Shawn Mendes. Or me and Giovanni Pernice.

CARMEN (Royal Opera)**

 

By Imogen

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/carmen-2018/videos/carmen-2018  £3

Available until: Friday 9^th October 2020

This is the silliest production I’ve ever seen. If you buy this I think you should minimise the screen and just listen. I think Barrie Kosky the director and Katrin Lea Tag the designer are on something. I really do.

THE ROYAL OPERA LIVE IN CONCERT****

 

By Imogen

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/the-royal-opera-live-in-concert-1/videos/the-royal-opera-live-in-concert

Available until: 30 days’ time, I think it costs about £10 to watch but it’s worth it.

It is so amazing seeing the auditorium of the Royal Opera House again! I could really feel the tingly excitement as soon as the ROH orchestra started to play. The orchestra were in the front of the Stalls (they got rid of the seats) and the Chorus were up in the Circles and the singers were onstage. The orchestra was socially distant which means they got to have their own music stand. I hope it will be like that for my school orchestra, it always annoys me to sit next to inferior flautists and the trouble with being the best is that everyone is inferior. But it will be annoying having to turn the pages myself. The Chorus sounded great and my mum thinks she recognised Louise Armit who she really rates, she saw her at Glyndebourne in solo roles. She has really nice hair.