REVIEW: Opera North Spring Season, Theatre Royal Newcastle, until tonight
07 March 2015
La Vida Breve (The Short Life) certainly lives up to its name because it packs everything in: bullying, murder, rape, suicide, violence, a wedding, drug taking and a surreal edge that makes you wonder what it’s about but, all the time, reeling you in and enthralling throughout.
A rare Spanish opera, it is set in a bridal gown-making sweatshop where a transvestite “worker” (Daniel Norman) is mocked, attacked, spat on and kicked. Her only friend is Salud (Anne Sophie Duprels).
Given its surreal character, the story looks as though it’s told through the dreams of the transvestite or it could have been through the eyes of Salud whose lover Paco (Jesus Alverez) is a wrong ‘un, causing Salud to self harm to the point of suicide. It’s a bloody but mesmerising affair!
In stark contrast, Gianni Schicchi is a light, comedic piece that entwines Dante’s Inferno with a modern story in which Dante’s mute character becomes the wealthy Bousco (Tim Claydon) who is on his way out and his “loving” family farcically flutter round him like vultures in the hope of gaining from his will.
What makes this interesting is Buoso hovering around (as a wall climber, a clown and an acrobat shinning up a rope) like a ghost watching his family and friends (especially Gianni Schicchi played by Christopher Purves) as they re-draw his will and eventually fall out over their greed.
The central point is the love between Lauretta (Tereza Gevorgyan) and Rincuccio (Jesus Alvarez). Gevorgyan’s rendition of “O mio babbino Caro” brought the house down.
The Opera North Season continues tonight with The Marriage of Figaro.
Published by Sunderland Echo
Review: Opera North double bill at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle -
- 4 March 2015
- 4 March 2015
There are elements of the narrative which I found tasteless, grotesque and at odds with the story. A tremendous amount of body fluids ended up on the factory floor – perhaps those men who have a great talent for choric singing about endless toil and then proceed to sit around doing nothing will finally have something to do.
Lynchpin of the piece is Elizabeth Sikora as Paco’s Grandmother whose performance maintained an emotional realism when all around her was madness.
It certainly gave us all something to talk about in the longer interval, when the stage was transformed for the next piece.
Gianni Schicci is Puccini’s only mature comic opera. It’s the one with the aria that you’ll defs know and is the satirical tale of relatives squabbling on the deathbed of Buoso.
It is an episode from Dante’s Divine Comedy and our newest resident of damnation, Gianni Schicci, a local mafia-looking fixer explains at the pieces end justifies his actions. I mean, you’d do anything if your daughter sang ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ to you, right?
Movement Director Tim Claydon is our Buoso and then the spectating Dante and his physicality, whether climbing or twirling is glorious to watch. Tereza Gevorgyan played Lauretta, who sings the famous aria, receiving a spontaneous round of applause. The piece was funny, startling and Puccini just can’t help himself but make the most beautiful music. I loved it.
by Evening Chronicle
Les Azuriales Young Artists Masterclass
Tereza Gevorgyan has done Les Azuriales Young Artists Masterclass and Competition in Nice, France. During the course she had masterclasses with Denis O'Neill. She won the Karaviotis Prize in Les Azuriales competition (2013). |
Eugene Onegin Royal Academy Opera at the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre
15.03.13
Tchaikovsky was insistent that his opera should be performed by students at the Conservatoire, so it was a fitting, if ambitious, choice for the post-graduate students of Royal Academy Opera. Refreshing to have to make allowances for youth rather than 'maturity' amongst these fine soloists, and, after Holten's very personal take at the ROH, nice to see this traditional production by John Ramster, set in the Russia of Pushkin's poem.
Sung in Russian, with an international cast, a largish orchestra and Jane Glover in the pit, this was no half-hearted affair.
Adrian Linford's design was simple, with large picture-frame upstage, and a strange flying fence to represent the countryside.
The chorus was a powerful force, singing with character and clarity, and managing some fine dance-steps, too, on this restricted stage: folk, waltz, polonaise, all executed with charm and panache [choreography by Victoria Newlyn].
This is Onegin's opera, and it is his downfall that provides the tragedy, as his life is ruined by a rash duel – a downfall well suggested by Ross Ramgobin, whose strong baritone was a delight throughout the piece. But it is Tatyana's story, and we were privileged to see a superb incarnation of the role by Tereza Gevorgyan. A proud aristocrat in the final scenes, but a credible love-sick teenager at the start. The demanding letter scene was stunningly crafted, helped by the white linen staging, though I could have done without the purple dream at the end, in which she gives herself to Onegin, standing rather awkwardly at the foot of her bed.
Stephen Aviss's romantic Lensky had a pleasant tenor, and an expressive face. His soliloquy before the duel, and the duet with Ramgobin which followed it, were among the dramatic highlights of the piece.
Outstanding work in smaller roles from Stuart Jackson as an imposing Pierrot Triquet, and from Rozanna Madylus as Filipievna, totally convincing both dramatically and vocally.
Enthusiastic, confident work from a large cast, well supported by the Royal Academy Sinfonia. We have certainly not heard the last of some of these new recruits to the lyric stage, and it was a privilege to share this impressive showcase with them.
Author: Michael Gray's
Posted by Michael Gray's
Sung in Russian, with an international cast, a largish orchestra and Jane Glover in the pit, this was no half-hearted affair.
Adrian Linford's design was simple, with large picture-frame upstage, and a strange flying fence to represent the countryside.
The chorus was a powerful force, singing with character and clarity, and managing some fine dance-steps, too, on this restricted stage: folk, waltz, polonaise, all executed with charm and panache [choreography by Victoria Newlyn].
This is Onegin's opera, and it is his downfall that provides the tragedy, as his life is ruined by a rash duel – a downfall well suggested by Ross Ramgobin, whose strong baritone was a delight throughout the piece. But it is Tatyana's story, and we were privileged to see a superb incarnation of the role by Tereza Gevorgyan. A proud aristocrat in the final scenes, but a credible love-sick teenager at the start. The demanding letter scene was stunningly crafted, helped by the white linen staging, though I could have done without the purple dream at the end, in which she gives herself to Onegin, standing rather awkwardly at the foot of her bed.
Stephen Aviss's romantic Lensky had a pleasant tenor, and an expressive face. His soliloquy before the duel, and the duet with Ramgobin which followed it, were among the dramatic highlights of the piece.
Outstanding work in smaller roles from Stuart Jackson as an imposing Pierrot Triquet, and from Rozanna Madylus as Filipievna, totally convincing both dramatically and vocally.
Enthusiastic, confident work from a large cast, well supported by the Royal Academy Sinfonia. We have certainly not heard the last of some of these new recruits to the lyric stage, and it was a privilege to share this impressive showcase with them.
Author: Michael Gray's
Posted by Michael Gray's
Eugene Onegin, Royal Academy Opera,
11 March 2013
Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, Royal Academy of Music, London, 11.3.2013
Madame Larina – Anna Harvey
Tatiana – Tereza Gevorgyan
Olga – Fiona Mackay
Filipievna – Rozanna Madylus
Eugene Onegin – Ross Ramgobin
Lensky – Stephen Aviss
Monsieur Triquet – Stuart Jackson
Zaretsky – Samuel Pantcheff
Prince Gremin – Nicholas Crawley
Captain – Samuel Queen
Royal Academy Opera Chorus
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)
John Ramster (director)
Adrian Linford (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Victoria Newlyn (choreography)
And still they come, not that I am complaining in the slightest! London has certainly not done badly for stagings of Eugene Onegin recently, and it did not do badly here either; indeed, it, or rather the performers, did very well indeed. Most of the operas I have seen at the Royal Academy of Music have been smaller scale; so far as I can recall, the only other nineteenth-century work was Béatriceet Bénédict, which of course is, by Berlioz’s standards, rather an intimate work. One might say the same of Eugene Onegin; after all, these ‘scenes’ from Pushkin were first performed at the Moscow Conservatory. But there is nevertheless a grander, for want of a better word ‘Romantic’, face to the work too – and there is ballet, or at least dance. However, any fears that a nineteenth-century opera might be biting off more than the RAM could chew were firmly banished.
Not everything was perfect, of course, but then I could say the same about any other performance I have heard. The orchestra took a while to get into its stride, noticeably more confident after the first interval. There were a good few brass fluffs early on; moreover, there were times when, with the best will in the world and even in a small theatre, the strings (6.6.4.4.2) were simply too thin in tone. That said, what was perhaps rather more surprising was how, especially as time went on, a glowing Romantic tone was more fully achieved. Jane Glover ably shaped the musical action throughout, displaying flexibility and not inconsiderable passion, without neglecting the needs of her young singers. (In ‘normal’ circumstances, I have little patience with the idea of a conductor ‘supporting’ singers, which normally seems to mean holding back, but in a music school environment, matters are somewhat different.) I do not mean this to be faint praise, but Glover’s account of the score was infinitely preferable to the recent dismal showing by RobinTicciati at the Royal Opera House.
John Ramster’s production did not provoke a great deal of thought, as Kasper Holten’s excellent ROH staging certainly had. (It clearly, unsurprisingly, passed over a great number of people’s heads, though seemed perfectly clear to me.) For a ‘traditional’ staging, however, it does its job well enough, granting the cast the opportunity not only to don nineteenth-century apparel but also successfully to follow commendably detailed stage direction. I was somewhat puzzled by what looked rather like a crown of thorns above the stage prior to St Petersburg; however, I realised, upon its disappearance, that it had been nothing so conceptually provocative, merely an indication of the countryside. There is nevertheless one particular directorial intervention at the end of the second act: following the death of Lensky, we see a calculating Olga already having moved on to the Captain from Mme Larina’s party. Victoria Newlyn’s choreography is apt and well executed, a credit both to her and to the cast.
Not least of the difficulties for the singers would have been the task of singing in Russian. (Thank goodness it was not translated!) They must all have been very well coached – Glover credited Ludmilla Andrew both for coaching and transliteration – since the results ranged from good to excellent. Perhaps Tereza Gevorgyan, the Armenian Tatiana, had an inbuilt advantage, but that did not explain her well-nigh superlative assumption of the role more generally, especially later on. Hesitance was well conveyed in stage terms during the opening scene, but the greatest triumph was in her final scene with Onegin, when a rare degree of agency was forged, making it clear that an empowered woman had turned the tables on the man who had once rejected a girl from the country. The slight – and I mean slight – metallic edge to Gevorgyan’s voice worked splendidly in cutting through and soaring above the orchestra; I hope and expect to hear more from her. Rozanna Madylus’s Filipievna, though of course a far smaller role, was at least as impressive, a full assumption, visually as well as vocally convincing, such as would have graced a major house. There was also much to admire in Anna Harvey's eminently professional Mme Larina. Fiona Mackay’s Olga occasionally lacked depth of tone, but was well acted, indeed exuberantly so, and for the most part equally well sung.
I wondered during the first act whether the relative stiffness of Ross Ramgobin’s Onegin was deliberate or a matter of nerves. By the end of the opera, I was reasonably certain that it had been the former, for he charted an excellent dramatic course, clearly transformed by the fatal duel with Lensky. (Not for the first time, I could not help but wish that more had been made by the director of the men’s ‘romantic friendship’, a subtext so glaring that it verges upon a supertext; however, Ramster’s production was unlikely to be the place where that would happen, and so it proved.) Vocal confidence grew as the performance continued: a highly creditable performance in a difficult role. Stephen Aviss’s Lensky suffered a little by comparison. I had the impression that it was a directorial decision to stress the airs of a poet, to render them slightly ridiculous, rather than the character’s brooding Romanticism, but there might nevertheless have been greater inwardness in performance too. Stuart Jackson verily stole the show, or rather the second act, as a bumptious M Triquet. Even Zaretsky made his mark, in the excellent hands of Samuel Pantcheff, making one wish the part were more extended. Prince Gremin is a gift of a role to an established bass, but whilst sung well by Nicholas Crawley, presents a greater challenge to a younger voice, a challenge whose deepest notes were not fully surmounted. Choral singing was excellent throughout; heft, clarity, and linguistic skill were equally impressive, no mean feat in this opera.
Author: Mark Berry
Posted by Mark Berry
Madame Larina – Anna Harvey
Tatiana – Tereza Gevorgyan
Olga – Fiona Mackay
Filipievna – Rozanna Madylus
Eugene Onegin – Ross Ramgobin
Lensky – Stephen Aviss
Monsieur Triquet – Stuart Jackson
Zaretsky – Samuel Pantcheff
Prince Gremin – Nicholas Crawley
Captain – Samuel Queen
Royal Academy Opera Chorus
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)
John Ramster (director)
Adrian Linford (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Victoria Newlyn (choreography)
And still they come, not that I am complaining in the slightest! London has certainly not done badly for stagings of Eugene Onegin recently, and it did not do badly here either; indeed, it, or rather the performers, did very well indeed. Most of the operas I have seen at the Royal Academy of Music have been smaller scale; so far as I can recall, the only other nineteenth-century work was Béatriceet Bénédict, which of course is, by Berlioz’s standards, rather an intimate work. One might say the same of Eugene Onegin; after all, these ‘scenes’ from Pushkin were first performed at the Moscow Conservatory. But there is nevertheless a grander, for want of a better word ‘Romantic’, face to the work too – and there is ballet, or at least dance. However, any fears that a nineteenth-century opera might be biting off more than the RAM could chew were firmly banished.
Not everything was perfect, of course, but then I could say the same about any other performance I have heard. The orchestra took a while to get into its stride, noticeably more confident after the first interval. There were a good few brass fluffs early on; moreover, there were times when, with the best will in the world and even in a small theatre, the strings (6.6.4.4.2) were simply too thin in tone. That said, what was perhaps rather more surprising was how, especially as time went on, a glowing Romantic tone was more fully achieved. Jane Glover ably shaped the musical action throughout, displaying flexibility and not inconsiderable passion, without neglecting the needs of her young singers. (In ‘normal’ circumstances, I have little patience with the idea of a conductor ‘supporting’ singers, which normally seems to mean holding back, but in a music school environment, matters are somewhat different.) I do not mean this to be faint praise, but Glover’s account of the score was infinitely preferable to the recent dismal showing by RobinTicciati at the Royal Opera House.
John Ramster’s production did not provoke a great deal of thought, as Kasper Holten’s excellent ROH staging certainly had. (It clearly, unsurprisingly, passed over a great number of people’s heads, though seemed perfectly clear to me.) For a ‘traditional’ staging, however, it does its job well enough, granting the cast the opportunity not only to don nineteenth-century apparel but also successfully to follow commendably detailed stage direction. I was somewhat puzzled by what looked rather like a crown of thorns above the stage prior to St Petersburg; however, I realised, upon its disappearance, that it had been nothing so conceptually provocative, merely an indication of the countryside. There is nevertheless one particular directorial intervention at the end of the second act: following the death of Lensky, we see a calculating Olga already having moved on to the Captain from Mme Larina’s party. Victoria Newlyn’s choreography is apt and well executed, a credit both to her and to the cast.
Not least of the difficulties for the singers would have been the task of singing in Russian. (Thank goodness it was not translated!) They must all have been very well coached – Glover credited Ludmilla Andrew both for coaching and transliteration – since the results ranged from good to excellent. Perhaps Tereza Gevorgyan, the Armenian Tatiana, had an inbuilt advantage, but that did not explain her well-nigh superlative assumption of the role more generally, especially later on. Hesitance was well conveyed in stage terms during the opening scene, but the greatest triumph was in her final scene with Onegin, when a rare degree of agency was forged, making it clear that an empowered woman had turned the tables on the man who had once rejected a girl from the country. The slight – and I mean slight – metallic edge to Gevorgyan’s voice worked splendidly in cutting through and soaring above the orchestra; I hope and expect to hear more from her. Rozanna Madylus’s Filipievna, though of course a far smaller role, was at least as impressive, a full assumption, visually as well as vocally convincing, such as would have graced a major house. There was also much to admire in Anna Harvey's eminently professional Mme Larina. Fiona Mackay’s Olga occasionally lacked depth of tone, but was well acted, indeed exuberantly so, and for the most part equally well sung.
I wondered during the first act whether the relative stiffness of Ross Ramgobin’s Onegin was deliberate or a matter of nerves. By the end of the opera, I was reasonably certain that it had been the former, for he charted an excellent dramatic course, clearly transformed by the fatal duel with Lensky. (Not for the first time, I could not help but wish that more had been made by the director of the men’s ‘romantic friendship’, a subtext so glaring that it verges upon a supertext; however, Ramster’s production was unlikely to be the place where that would happen, and so it proved.) Vocal confidence grew as the performance continued: a highly creditable performance in a difficult role. Stephen Aviss’s Lensky suffered a little by comparison. I had the impression that it was a directorial decision to stress the airs of a poet, to render them slightly ridiculous, rather than the character’s brooding Romanticism, but there might nevertheless have been greater inwardness in performance too. Stuart Jackson verily stole the show, or rather the second act, as a bumptious M Triquet. Even Zaretsky made his mark, in the excellent hands of Samuel Pantcheff, making one wish the part were more extended. Prince Gremin is a gift of a role to an established bass, but whilst sung well by Nicholas Crawley, presents a greater challenge to a younger voice, a challenge whose deepest notes were not fully surmounted. Choral singing was excellent throughout; heft, clarity, and linguistic skill were equally impressive, no mean feat in this opera.
Author: Mark Berry
Posted by Mark Berry
Royal Academy Onegin
Tereza Gevorgyan (Tatyana) Royal Academy of Music Eugene Onegin March 11 2013
It was a great pleasure to be at the RAM this evening for their really honest production of Eugene Onegin. This was a straightforward bit of story telling, with no pretentious nonsense, delivering the goods as clearly as possible. Which is not to say that the director John Ramster had no original illuminating and thought provoking touches. But there was no imposition of Regietheater nonsense of the kind that one has seen so often, and which is particularly inappropriate for this story!
The RAM has a really strong faculty and student body. I have been going around conservatory opera performances for a good many years now (45 at least) so I think I have my benchmarks quite clear. This was in the top decile (if that is the right word). Whatever, it was one of the best - largely because of the magical performance by the young Armenian soprano Tereza Gevorgyan. You will hear more of her.....
But there was a strong team all round notwithstanding the prevalence of colds and flu. This resulted in a replacement Madame Larina, and a valiant and beautifully voiced Onegin who was, in spite of his suffering, producing gorgeous sounds - the young baritone Ross Ramgobin.
So these are two to watch. And as Monsieur Triquet Stuart Jackson produced a large vignette (is that a vigne?) as M. Triquet - it was a novel idea of Ramster to make him a commedia dell'arte figure.
And finally this was all the the hands of the RAM opera's director, Jane Glover. How fortunate they are!
Tomorrow evening I am at the Royal College of Music for Handel's Imeneo.
Author: Brian Dickie
Posted By Brian Dickie
It was a great pleasure to be at the RAM this evening for their really honest production of Eugene Onegin. This was a straightforward bit of story telling, with no pretentious nonsense, delivering the goods as clearly as possible. Which is not to say that the director John Ramster had no original illuminating and thought provoking touches. But there was no imposition of Regietheater nonsense of the kind that one has seen so often, and which is particularly inappropriate for this story!
The RAM has a really strong faculty and student body. I have been going around conservatory opera performances for a good many years now (45 at least) so I think I have my benchmarks quite clear. This was in the top decile (if that is the right word). Whatever, it was one of the best - largely because of the magical performance by the young Armenian soprano Tereza Gevorgyan. You will hear more of her.....
But there was a strong team all round notwithstanding the prevalence of colds and flu. This resulted in a replacement Madame Larina, and a valiant and beautifully voiced Onegin who was, in spite of his suffering, producing gorgeous sounds - the young baritone Ross Ramgobin.
So these are two to watch. And as Monsieur Triquet Stuart Jackson produced a large vignette (is that a vigne?) as M. Triquet - it was a novel idea of Ramster to make him a commedia dell'arte figure.
And finally this was all the the hands of the RAM opera's director, Jane Glover. How fortunate they are!
Tomorrow evening I am at the Royal College of Music for Handel's Imeneo.
Author: Brian Dickie
Posted By Brian Dickie
World Orchestra for Peace
It is hard to find an orchestra as star-studded as this one, comprising top players from the Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Mariinsky Orchestra, and more. Hailed for its “unrelenting intensity and edge-of-the-seat excitement” (The Guardian), this intrepid ensemble makes its highly anticipated US debut in a spectacular celebration of its founder, Sir Georg Solti, performing a selection of opera’s most beloved arias with superstars Angela Gheorghiu and René Pape, as well as orchestral favorites under the baton of impassioned conductor Valery Gergiev.
Highlighting the influential conductor’s aims to nurture talented young singers and musicians through his academy programs, this special tribute is hosted by Lady Solti and features video vignettes with celebrated alumni from his prestigious training grounds.
Tereza Gevorgyan
Armenian soprano Tereza Gevorgyan was born in 1988. She studied with Rafael Akopyants at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory and received her bachelor's degree in 2005. In her third year at the conservatory, she performed as a soloist, playing Serafina in Il campanello, Serpina in La serva padrona, and Fanny in La cambiale di matrimonio.
In 2011, Ms. Gevorgyan was selected for the Georg Solti Accademia in Tuscany, receiving intensive training with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Sir Thomas Allen, and performing in Tuscany and Florence. She also recorded an Italian song for the Solti 100th birthday celebration CD, which was produced by Richard Bonynge.
Ms. Gevorgyan's operatic repertoire includes Musetta in La bohème, Norina in Don Pasquale, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Marfa in The Tsar's Bride, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, and Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann.
Ms. Gevorgyan has won several vocal competitions in Armenia and, most recently, the 2012 Ludmilla Andrew Russian Song Prize contest at the Royal Academy of Music, where she continues her studies with Lillian Watson and Jonathan Papp, having completed her master's degree in performance this year. She is supported by a Raffy Manoukian Scholarship at the Academy.
Highlighting the influential conductor’s aims to nurture talented young singers and musicians through his academy programs, this special tribute is hosted by Lady Solti and features video vignettes with celebrated alumni from his prestigious training grounds.
Tereza Gevorgyan
Armenian soprano Tereza Gevorgyan was born in 1988. She studied with Rafael Akopyants at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory and received her bachelor's degree in 2005. In her third year at the conservatory, she performed as a soloist, playing Serafina in Il campanello, Serpina in La serva padrona, and Fanny in La cambiale di matrimonio.
In 2011, Ms. Gevorgyan was selected for the Georg Solti Accademia in Tuscany, receiving intensive training with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Sir Thomas Allen, and performing in Tuscany and Florence. She also recorded an Italian song for the Solti 100th birthday celebration CD, which was produced by Richard Bonynge.
Ms. Gevorgyan's operatic repertoire includes Musetta in La bohème, Norina in Don Pasquale, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Marfa in The Tsar's Bride, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, and Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann.
Ms. Gevorgyan has won several vocal competitions in Armenia and, most recently, the 2012 Ludmilla Andrew Russian Song Prize contest at the Royal Academy of Music, where she continues her studies with Lillian Watson and Jonathan Papp, having completed her master's degree in performance this year. She is supported by a Raffy Manoukian Scholarship at the Academy.
All-star Solti tribute proves a rich and exhilarating ride
The gifts, an assortment of eight musical offerings, were elegantly presented and thoughtfully chosen. There were heart-felt tributes from appreciative colleagues. The pacing was brisk, and the party wrapped up with an inspired bit of goofiness.
Sunday was the 100th birthday of Sir Georg Solti, one of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s most charismatic music directors, who died in 1997 at age 84. Artistic head of the CSO from 1969 to 1991, he took the orchestra to the heights of international fame with his combination of white-hot intensity and preternatural obsession with technical precision.
On Sunday afternoon, one of Solti’s pet projects, the World Orchestra for Peace, took the stage at Symphony Center under the baton of superstar Russian conductor Valery Gergiev. Created in 1995 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, the ensemble includes musicians from 60 orchestra around the world including the CSO, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, the Paris Opera Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera and Gergiev’s own Maryinsky Theatre Symphony.
Lady Valerie Solti, Solti’s widow, provided lively, brief commentary during the two-hour program of works by Mozart, Verdi, Richard Strauss, Mahler and Bartok. Each of the eight pieces highlighted a facet of Solti’s career, from his decades as a leading opera conductor in Munich, Frankfurt and London to his personal relationship with Strauss and Bartok as well as his towering achievements with the CSO as a Mahler conductor. Two artists whose careers Solti fostered, Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and German bass Rene Pape, performed, along with young artists from the Solti Accademia, which is based in Italy, and the Solti Foundation U.S.
Pape is no stranger to Chicago, first appearing under Solti’s baton with the CSO in Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons in 1992 and later as a welcome guest at Lyric Opera in roles ranging from King Marke in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2000 to Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust in 2009. On Sunday afternoon his reading of “In diesen heil’gen Hallen” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute combined noble stateliness and deeply felt sincerity.
Gheorghiu has been rather less welcome in Chicago, having been fired from Lyric’s production of La Boheme in 2007 after missing a majority of rehearsals. She brought a sumptuous soprano and ardent passion to her reading of Violetta’s anguished “Teneste la promessa…Addio del passato” from Verdi’s La traviata. In the famously dulcet duet from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, she was a comically slippery object of Pape’s cynical affections.
Four young alumni from the Solti Accademia—Armenian soprano Tereza Gevorgyan, Swedish mezzo-soprano Matilda Paulsson, Mexican tenor Roberto Ortiz and British baritone Ross Ramgobin—found compelling urgency in the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto. Cristian Macelaru, a winner of the Solti Foundation U.S. Conductor’s Award who stepped in for an ailing Pierre Boulez during CSO concerts last February, deftly shaped the delicate balance between the orchestra and singers.
Sunday was the 100th birthday of Sir Georg Solti, one of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s most charismatic music directors, who died in 1997 at age 84. Artistic head of the CSO from 1969 to 1991, he took the orchestra to the heights of international fame with his combination of white-hot intensity and preternatural obsession with technical precision.
On Sunday afternoon, one of Solti’s pet projects, the World Orchestra for Peace, took the stage at Symphony Center under the baton of superstar Russian conductor Valery Gergiev. Created in 1995 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, the ensemble includes musicians from 60 orchestra around the world including the CSO, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, the Paris Opera Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera and Gergiev’s own Maryinsky Theatre Symphony.
Lady Valerie Solti, Solti’s widow, provided lively, brief commentary during the two-hour program of works by Mozart, Verdi, Richard Strauss, Mahler and Bartok. Each of the eight pieces highlighted a facet of Solti’s career, from his decades as a leading opera conductor in Munich, Frankfurt and London to his personal relationship with Strauss and Bartok as well as his towering achievements with the CSO as a Mahler conductor. Two artists whose careers Solti fostered, Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and German bass Rene Pape, performed, along with young artists from the Solti Accademia, which is based in Italy, and the Solti Foundation U.S.
Pape is no stranger to Chicago, first appearing under Solti’s baton with the CSO in Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons in 1992 and later as a welcome guest at Lyric Opera in roles ranging from King Marke in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2000 to Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust in 2009. On Sunday afternoon his reading of “In diesen heil’gen Hallen” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute combined noble stateliness and deeply felt sincerity.
Gheorghiu has been rather less welcome in Chicago, having been fired from Lyric’s production of La Boheme in 2007 after missing a majority of rehearsals. She brought a sumptuous soprano and ardent passion to her reading of Violetta’s anguished “Teneste la promessa…Addio del passato” from Verdi’s La traviata. In the famously dulcet duet from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, she was a comically slippery object of Pape’s cynical affections.
Four young alumni from the Solti Accademia—Armenian soprano Tereza Gevorgyan, Swedish mezzo-soprano Matilda Paulsson, Mexican tenor Roberto Ortiz and British baritone Ross Ramgobin—found compelling urgency in the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto. Cristian Macelaru, a winner of the Solti Foundation U.S. Conductor’s Award who stepped in for an ailing Pierre Boulez during CSO concerts last February, deftly shaped the delicate balance between the orchestra and singers.