Vivat opera, 2023!
Put down that cruise guide! Now! Into the crackling Christmas log fire with it. Who wants to start the New Year drifting on an upended skyscraper in Atlantic squalls, with 4,000 heave-ho shipmates, listening to celebrity lectures from Gyles Brandreth about how he knitted violently patterned reindeer pullovers for the Royal Family’s kids, to secure the inside scoop for his new best-selling stocking filler, Elizabeth?
Which followed hard on the heels of the equally originally titled, Philip. Which only just preceded the even more loquaciously titled Philip and Elizabeth.
Brandreth is the monarchy’s literary hearse-chaser-in-waiting. The mystery of the author’s fluency with royal titles is he hasn’t yet been awarded one. His insider tittly-tattly books make compulsive reading. Watch that New Year list.
All three page-turners were alarmingly preceded by Have You Eaten Grandma? Which I assumed referred to the Queen Mum, but, disappointingly, turned out to be about misunderstandings caused by misuse of punctuation. “Grandma” should be preceded by a comma, you see. Or not, as the culinary tastes of the household demand.
This is not a digression. I have not yet got round to making any point at all. So, that point is, why, instead of descending to the seventh circle of banal cruising hell, should readers not seek out the thrills of operas blossoming at festivals in stunning locations across the planet in 2023 instead? Whew! We have arrived.
An opera cornucopia lies in wait in 2023. For the adventurous, the timrous, the neophyte, the troglodyte. All tastes catered for.
First up. AAAARGH! It’s an opera cruise, courtesy of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Guild. Hoist by me own petard, me hearties!
The voyage is designed to explore “the artistic intersection of architecture and music” through visits to concert venues across the western Mediterranean. Beginning with an opera performance in Rome’s 1,600-seat Teatro dell’ Opera, followed by nightly on-ship musical guest performances – not a Gyles Brandreth jumper in sight – and ending with a chamber music recital in a small, converted convent in Malaga.
Onshore architectural treasures beckon, too, such as The Palau de la Música Catalana, architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner’s exuberant modernist paean to Catalan culture in Barcelona, and Santiago Calatrava’s ultra-modern Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia.
It is a jovial opportunity to experience a wide variety of art and music spanning centuries with opera’s equivalent of The Wild Bunch. Good luck!
I know Guild Chairman, Rich Miller, well. He performed the role of a singing Santa last Saturday at the Met Opera Club’s kiddies party operetta Flurry Tale in the Lincoln Center and supervised the wee devils’ destruction of a large gingerbread house, spreading edible shrapnel far and wide. Happy to effect an introduction, at your own risk.
Back in shrapnel free English sylvan glades, the usual country house opera suspects are already being pencilled into the Reaction diary.
Grange Park, West Horsley, Surrey. This summer the unstoppable, Director, Wasfi Kani’s theme is Three love stories and a Welsh knight: Operas are Tristan and Isolde, Werther and Tosca. The knight is the great Sir Bryn Terfel, performing in a Gala. The season runs from 8 June to 13July.
Nevill Holt, the Lincolnshire magic 14th century Grade 1 manor palace, boasting probably the best collection of garden gnomic sculpture in England, runs from 31 May to 28 June. David Ross, former Carphone Warehouse entrepreneur has created a culture haven on his estate near Market Harborough. There is a double bill of Pagliacci and Gianni Schicchi; and Rossini’s version of La Cenerentola. Expect the usual original flare and abundant use of young singing talent, brought on through Ross’ educational foundation.
The Grange Festival, Northington, Hampshire, runs from 8 June to 1 July. In addition to Cosi Fan Tutte, Orfeo ed Euridice/Dido and Aeneas and Queen of Spades, Grange is stepping up the beat with Ellington: From Stride to Strings, a journey through the Duke’s fascinating life.
On to European highlights. Austria runs amok, with twenty festivals. Apart from the well-known Salzburg and Vienna events I’ve spotted Oper Burg Gars, a ruined castle in Babenberg. What do ruined castles usually host? Aida, of course.
France’s Aix en Provence Festival runs through July. Eight operas, some semi-staged. The eye-catcher is the European premiere of The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Philip Venables and Ted Huffman. No, I didn’t know it was based on a 1977 book of the same name by Larry Mitchell either. Self-published. Does not bode well. Admit it, that would catch your eye, too. Hmmm!
Italy has roughly 20 gatherings, including the Parma Verdi Festival in October and the Spoleto Festival dei Dui Monde, 23 June to 9 July. The programme is still in the making, but the Gian Carlo Menotti founded event will be, as usual, spectacular.
The Savonlinna Festival in Finland runs through July and features another intriguing double bill this year – Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and A Room of One’s Own by Finnish composer, Outi Tarkiainen. Loosely based on Virginia Woolf’s 1929 classic, Tarkiainen tells of women ignored, including Judith Shakespeare the fictional unrecognised playwright sister of the great William. Judith? What’s that about? Worth the trip to the lakeside Olavinlinna castle just to find out.
Germany proliferates festivals ranging from Bayreuth, through Baden-Baden to Munich. This year look out for the easily missed Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Margravial Opera House – not the Wagner temple on the hill – from 7-17 September. This year’s programme is yet to be announced. 2022’s big show was Allessandro del inde by Leonardo Vinci. Mesmerising concert performances are on offer. I tried to secure tickets but failed. I resolve to be better prepared.
And, for any regular reader of this column it will come as no surprise that I have been slavering over the recent announcement of Ireland’s Wexford Festival Opera programme for 2023.
Focused on the theme of Women and War, the three mainstage operas will be Zoraida di Granata by G. Donizetti 1822; L’aube rouge by Camille Erlanger 1911; and La Ciociara by Marco Tutino, 2015.
The festival theme of Women and War has been maturing in Cucchi’s mind over a number of years and is even more relevant today now women are combatants than when these operas were written. Each highlights a different aspect of the struggles which women face; in wars, fighting prejudice, making women’s voices heard.
A modern premiere, Zoraida di Granata, written by Donizetti in 1822, follows the experience of a woman drawn into war against her will, in a battle to save her love. Irish soprano Claudia Boyle will sing the title role.
Donizetti wrote two versions of this opera, one in 1822 and the second in 1824 (the only existing recording of the Zoraida di Granata by Opera Rara (1990) gives an idea of the two versions). Zoraida di Granata will be presented as a co-production with the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo who plan to stage the 1824 version of the work in 2024.
L’aube rouge (go on, translate it yourself) was written by Camille Erlanger in 1911. A respected composer while alive, Erlanger was the Prix de Rome winner and a student of Léo Delibes. Over time however, his work has been neglected.
The tragic opera follows the story of Olga, who strives to save her nihilistic and blinkered partner Serge, who believes that change comes only through violence. Their inevitable fate plays out against a beautifully nuanced score.
La Ciociara (Two Women) by Marco Tutino, premiered in 2015 was originally a commission by San Francisco Opera, based on true events at the end of the Second World War. The orchestration will be revised for the Wexford Festival by Tutino. This will be the first time the new version will be professionally performed.
Based on a novel by Alberto Moravia, the film version,La Ciociara (1960), directed by Italian director Vittorio De Sica, starred Sophia Loren. Audiences will have the chance to see a screening of the film as part of the Festival. A Wexford double whammy.
A contemporary opera depicting the devastating impact of the end of the Second World War in Italy, La Ciociara follows a mother trying to shield and protect her daughter from the horrors of war in the aftermath of the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Booking for Wexford opens in March. A fuller look ahead with a rundown on the burgeoning offerings that supplement the main stage productions will be provided. Only once I have my own tickets firmly in the bag, mind you.
In 2023 the operatic art form will be alive and kicking, new life being breathed into pioneering repertoire alongside the ever-new slant being provided on the classical canon, plus polished performances of beloved favourites. Not just in city opera houses either. Out there in the boondocks. Come on, Gyles. There’s a book in that.