Charles Workman

Cardillac is a master jeweler who cannot live without his creations, killing his clients to recuperate them and assert his authorship, and conferring the status of art upon the act of murder.

This 2021 Deutsche Oper Berlin performance is directed by Christof Loy and stars soprano Sara Jakubiak in the title role. Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini is a four-act opera set during the Renaissance period. The plot concerns an arranged marriage between Francesca and Giovanni, also known as Gianciotto, who is impersonated by his handsome brother Paolo, and with whom Francesca falls passionately in love.

Stage director Frank Castorf “might have been born to direct From the House of the Dead” (Opera Today). His gritty, visually striking adaptation brings bold modern and postmodern touches to Janáček’s masterwork without ever overshadowing the intense forward momentum of the music, conducted to dramatic perfection by Simone Young and sung by an all-star cast in Munich. Janáček adapted Dostoevsky for this powerfully compelling opera set in a Siberian prison camp, full of starkly contrasting moods and motifs, unusual in its episodic structure. The last opera Janáček ever composed, its third act was on his desk when he died in 1928; attempts by his students to “complete” his orchestration have largely fallen away over the decades in favor of the original version. Despite the grimness of the setting and the brutality of several characters, the composer’s compassion shines through in tender moments, movingly illustrating his motto for the work: “in every creature, a spark of God.”

Gioachino Rossini : Tancredi The city of Syracuse is tethered by conflict and war between the Byzantine Empire, with which it has an unstable truce, and the Saracen armies headed by Solamir. Not only is Syracuse exhausted by external war, but internal war as well; the soldier Tancredi and his family have been stripped of their estates and inheritances, and he himself has been banished since his youth. Two more noble families, headed by Argirio and Orbazzano, have been warring for years. Argirio and his family - his wife and his daughter, Amenaide - have been residing as guests of the Byzantine court, where Tancredi presides in exile. Also present in the court is Solamir, the Moorish general, who wishes for the lovely Amenaide's hand in marriage in hopes that he can create a Saracen-Syracusean alliance. However, Amenaide is secretly in love with Tancredi.

L'Opéra National de Paris' production of L'Amour des trois oranges must certainly be one of the most elaborate operatic presentations. It has a cast of gazillions, characters who fly, jugglers, fire-eaters, remarkably elaborate costumes, amazingly realistic props (those five-foot oranges are convincingly juicy and edible looking), a huge set, fireworks, and so on. In fact, at times, it looks more like a Cirque de Soleil show than something you'd see in an opera house. Director Gilbert Deflo's conception and William Orlandi's costumes and sets are rooted in commedia dell'arte, but the production is thoroughly eclectic, with allusions to a wonderfully weird assortment of styles and periods.

Tan Dun portrays the Venetian explorer's travels to the Far East as a journey of both inner and physical discovery, a voyage depicting spiritual experiences as well as a geographical expedition. Pierre Audi's mythical staging and Jean Kalman's fabulous set design complement the composer's own musical direction, forging the dazzlingly versatile soloists, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Cappella Amsterdam to a stunning symbiosis of elements across time and space, a true testimony to cultures intertwined in globalization.

Set in Venice during the Renaissance, the drama centres on Bassanio, a young nobleman who would like to court the beautiful Portia but doesn‘t have the money to travel to her country estate, so he asks the merchant Antonio for help. Antonio‘s wealth is tied up in maritime trade but he offers to procure the sum Bassanio needs from the Jewish money lender Shylock. Shylock hates Antonio for being so contemptuous in his treatment of Jews, and therefore stipulates that if the debt is not repaid within three months, the penalty will be a pound of Antonio‘s own flesh...

The reopening show of the historical stage of the Bolshoi Theatre by Jurowski and Tcherniakov. "Ruslan and Lyudmila", opera by Mikhail Glinka, has particular relation with the Bolshoï Theater, it held more than 700 representations throughout the history and nine different productions. Logically the fable of Mikhail Glinka (from a poem of Pushkin), symbol of the Russian opera, opened the season 2011-2012 of the majestic Moscow s opera, after its long renovation. This reopening inspired the director Dmitri Tcherniakov, who signed the direction of this new production. The new devices of the Bolshoi Theatre and its two giant screens are fully exploited in a spectacular staging. Tcherniakov transposes Glinka s opera at the 21th century with contemporary ambitions because of the "modernity of the subject", trying there to put forward "the deep feelings of the characters , exposing the protagonists to very modern temptations: a "harem" for Ruslan, a Thai massage for Lyudmila.