Latest news with #AntonioPappano
Western Telegraph
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Western Telegraph
Torch Theatre: Royal Opera House screening in Pembrokeshire
The Pembrokeshire theatre is embarking on its 'cinema season,' which will kick off with a live screening of 'Die Walküre' (The Valkyrie) by The Royal Ballet and Opera. This opera-ballet extravaganza will be directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Antonio Pappano. The screening brings Wagner's tale of gods and mortals battling it out further, following the saga that began with 'Das Rheingold' in 2023. The storyline follows a love entwined with fate that could potentially be powerful enough to end the world. Meanwhile, an epic confrontation ensues between Wotan, played by Christopher Maltman, the king of gods, and his rebellious daughter Brünnhilde, enacted by Elisabet Strid. Viewers will be treated to a visually compelling stage setup by designer Rufus Didwiszus, with costumes by Victoria Behr and lighting by Alessandro Carletti. Critically acclaimed by the Guardian's Erica Jeal who gave the show four stars, the production will be sung in German with translated captions for English speakers. The show starts at 2pm on Sunday, May 18. Tickets are priced at £20 per person, with a concessional rate of £18. Those under the age of 26 can enter at £9 per head. Further information can be found on the Torch Theatre website or via telephone on 01646 695267. The Royal Opera House is renowned for its ballet and opera productions. For those in need of further assistance, contact the Box Office.
Daily Mail
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
TULLY WALKER reviews: Die Walkure at the Royal Opera House: The costumes are a mess and there's a giant log in the middle of the set... but the singing and playing are glorious
Die Walkure (Royal Opera House) Verdict: Well cast, well sung, well played The new ROH Ring reaches its second evening with the best all-round cast I can recall in Die Walkure: the uniformly sonorous sounds emanating from the stage are matched by the glorious row coming from the pit. As the scenery, costumes and production are execrable — Wotan, supposedly king of the gods, is a dead ringer for J.D. Vance ('Make Valhalla Great Again') in his suit and tie — perhaps I may more profitably dwell on the musical side for a while. The incestuous lovers of Act 1, Siegmund and Sieglinde, are given life by the fresh tones of French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw. American bass Soloman Howard's dark voice helps to make Sieglinde's husband Hunding a nasty piece of work. As Brunnhilde, the Valkyrie of the title, Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid is vertically challenged — she needs some of the stature of Russian mezzo Marina Prudenskaya's fine Fricka (familiar from Rheingold in 2023), who has inches to spare — but she sings with power and intensity. J.D. ... er ...Wotan is lent vocal heft and grandeur of phrasing by Christopher Maltman, who seems destined to impersonate politicians — he was Iain Duncan Smith to the life in Rheingold. I approve of his wearing a wig. I suppose the Orange One is being held in reserve for Gotterdammerung. Sir Antonio Pappano and the orchestra generate tremendous power in such big numbers as the Ride of the Valkyries — a pity Barrie Kosky's production renders the scene pathetic to the eye. Again the action is haunted by a SENOL (Symbolic Emaciated Naked Old Lady), meant to be the goddess Erda. I felt glad on her behalf that it was a warm night. We get another massive log — I cannot tell you if it is the same one as in Rheingold: one log looks much like another to me. The Magic Fire in Act 3 flickers in a dead tree. Designer Rufus Didwiszus makes Hunding's hut an unimpressive wall, from a crack in which Siegmund draws the sword Nothung. I gained precisely nothung from this transaction. Smoke drifts about the stage at times and the Valkyries unearth desiccated human skeletons from somewhere. You want to know about the costumes. Sieglinde looks like a Melbourne housewife. Siegmund removes a large hoodie to reveal ... a smaller hoodie. Hunding seems to work as a security man. Fricka arrives in a Rolls-Royce. Anyone would think she was Dame Edna, only she sings better.
The Guardian
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
On my radar: Raja Shehadeh's cultural highlights
Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian author and lawyer, and co-founder of the human rights organisation Al-Haq. He won the Orwell prize in 2008 for his book Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, and his new book, Forgotten: Searching for Palestine's Hidden Places and Lost Memorials, written with his wife, Penny Johnson, is out now. My garden in Ramallah (in the West Bank) I built the house and the garden around it in 1996, when Ramallah was less crowded. I have trees, shrubs, vegetables and flowers, roses, snapdragons and geraniums, which are very easy to grow in our part of the world. At the moment I am mostly pruning, which is convenient because I can do it standing up, only crouching and stooping a little. I consider pruning to be like editing – you decide how you want a shrub to grow. Every house here used to have a garden but now that land is so expensive it is mostly used for more buildings. Gardens are unusual, unfortunately. A Knock on the Roof by Khawla Ibraheem I saw this at the Traverse theatre in Edinburgh last year. It's a wonderful one-woman play about a woman living in Gaza and having to respond to the small warning bombs that the Israeli army throw on your roof to let you know that you have five to 15 minutes before they destroy your house. In the play, she practises how to react quickly, what and who to take. It's very tense and a very good account of life under these terrible conditions. It's about the earlier war of course, the 2014 war. I think they have stopped this practice – now they just destroy without warning. Palestine from Above This was on at the AM Qattan Foundation in Ramallah and is now at a gallery in Istanbul. The foundation is a philanthropic organisation and it does very good exhibitions. This one investigates the ways in which Palestine has been looked at from above – surveillance, cartography, photography – and puts this in context by showing, alongside those images, pictures, art and interviews by the people living there. Viewing Palestine from the sky has long been part of a colonial war of subjugation, and Palestinians try to escape and counter this through their own works. Behind the Symphony with Antonio Pappano: Mahler (Symphony No 1) (Marquee TV) I very much like classical music but I have never really appreciated Mahler and always felt as if I was missing out on something. This is a documentary about the life story, history and artistry of three symphonies, one of which is by Mahler. Antonio Pappano does a very good job of describing his Symphony No 1 and I found it enlightening. Before I didn't really understand what Mahler was trying to do, but when someone guided me through it step by step it was an entirely different experience. It grabbed me. I like Beethoven, Schubert, Bach and now Mahler! Don't Look Left: A Diary of Genocide by Atef Abu Saif I had been following the Gaza war and it got to the point where I couldn't take any more: news of one massacre after another. I was numb and started withdrawing, but then I picked up this book by the Palestinian Authority minister for culture, who went to Gaza from the West Bank to do an event there. He took his son with him so that they could swim in the sea, then the war started and they were stuck. He wrote this diary, which exactly evokes the feeling of life there under a war against civilians as well as Hamas. If you survive, it is by chance. Edinburgh This is a place I have been visiting since 1991 and that has been very kind to me. I come every summer for its culture and music, and to walk in the gardens and parks. Many of my books have been launched here and I have made friends and feel at home. It gives me respite from the rigours of the West Bank. It's a place where, if you love something, when you come back you find that it is still there, that it hasn't been destroyed. That's very comforting for someone who lives in a place that is constantly under attack.
The Independent
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
London Symphony Orchestra conductor Antonio Pappano goes underground — he takes the Tube to work
Antonio Pappano has gone underground since leaving The Royal Opera for the London Symphony Orchestra. 'Now, more often than not, I take the Tube, which I never did when I was at the opera house because I had a car service,' he said. 'This is a more streamlined organization, if you like.' A 65-year-old conductor who was Covent Garden's music director from 2002-24, Pappano succeeded Simon Rattle as the LSO's chief conductor last September and has a quick commute from his home in Hampstead to the LSO's Barbican Centre home. He is leading the orchestra on a 13-concert U.S. tour to California, Florida and New York that culminates this week with its first Carnegie Hall appearances since 2005. 'Everything is very much based on the voice for Tony because of his opera background,' said Maxine Kwok, an LSO violinist since 2001 and a member of its board. 'So it all comes down to emotions and how you would phrase things if you were singing.' Pappano was born in England and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, with his family when he was 13. A son of a voice teacher, he became a rehearsal pianist at the Connecticut Grand Opera at 17 and then at New York City Opera at 21. He worked as assistant to Daniel Barenboim on 'Tristan,' the Ring Cycle and 'Parsifal' at the Bayreuth Festival and debuted in 1991 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and in 1994 at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where Barenboim was music director. 'I probably shouldn't have been in front of some of the big symphony orchestras, Chicago Symphony, for sure. That came a little bit too soon,' Pappano said. 'But I survived and then hopefully you learn from those mistakes of timing. In terms of the long-term positions I've had, I don't think I've put a foot wrong.' He was music director of Oslo's Den Norske Opera from 1990-92, Brussels' Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie from 1992-2002 and Rome's Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia from 2005-23, often working with his wife, vocal coach Pamela Bullock. While Pappano grew up in the U.S., he has concentrated his career in Europe. 'There's a lot of turmoil in the States, well, all over the world at the moment, and I don't miss that,' he said. 'I'm concerned about the way America is going, if I'm honest. I also worry about the degree to which art in general is treated like some kind of elitist domain to an even greater degree than it is over here. We have to fight that sentiment over here because the easiest thing to cut in a budget is the arts budget.' Clive Gillinson, then LSO's managing director, engaged Pappano for a 1996 recording of Puccini's 'La Rondine' with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Roberto Alagna at London's Abbey Road Studios. 'I thought he should be given a chance as a symphonic conductor because there was very little track record,' said Gillinson, now Carnegie Hall's executive director. 'To be honest, in those early days, I didn't think he was a great symphonic conductor. It took him time." Pappano led his first LSO concert performance the following January at the Barbican. 'It was clear right from the get-go that he kind of got the LSO and we very much got him,' said Neil Percy, a principal percussion who has been with the LSO since 1990. 'It's in his soul, man. You can see it in his skin. He just understands opera kind of like no other conductor that I've ever been fortunate enough to work with.' Pappano debuted at The Royal Opera in Puccini's 'La Bohème' in 1990 and was 32 when he became its youngest music director, following distinguished predecessors Rafael Kubelik, Georg Solti, Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink. Pappano announced in March 2021 he was switching to the LSO, an ensemble known for its work on movie soundtracks that include 'Star Wars.' Rattle had moved to the LSO in 2017 and decided he wanted to switch in 2023 to Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. 'We're chalk and cheese, as they say in England," Pappano explained. 'With Simon Rattle there's an incredible precision in the approach to the playing,' said Kathryn McDowell, who succeeded Gillinson as the LSO's managing director. 'It's a different sound with Antonio Pappano... it's got a real sort of sheen.' Pappano is continuing to lead Covent Garden's production premieres of Barrie Kosky's staging of the Ring, with 'Die Walküre' opening May 1, 'Siegfried' next season and 'Götterdämmerung in 2026-27, but his successor, Jakub Hrůša, will be in charge of the full cycle in 2027-28. When Pappano conducted the finale of Maher's Symphony No. 1 in Naples, Florida, last week, he was struck by a realization. 'I've never had anything like this under my hands. What a lucky sod I am,' he recalled thinking. 'That life underneath every note, that was always the calling card of this orchestra. If you could stoke that flair, that theatricality that they have, it's quite something.'
Associated Press
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
London Symphony Orchestra conductor Antonio Pappano goes underground — he takes the Tube to work
NEW YORK (AP) — Antonio Pappano has gone underground since leaving The Royal Opera for the London Symphony Orchestra. 'Now, more often than not, I take the Tube, which I never did when I was at the opera house because I had a car service,' he said. 'This is a more streamlined organization, if you like.' A 65-year-old conductor who was Covent Garden's music director from 2002-24, Pappano succeeded Simon Rattle as the LSO's chief conductor last September and has a quick commute from his home in Hampstead to the LSO's Barbican Centre home. He is leading the orchestra on a 13-concert U.S. tour to California, Florida and New York that culminates this week with its first Carnegie Hall appearances since 2005. 'Everything is very much based on the voice for Tony because of his opera background,' said Maxine Kwok, an LSO violinist since 2001 and a member of its board. 'So it all comes down to emotions and how you would phrase things if you were singing.' Pappano was born in England and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, with his family when he was 13. A son of a voice teacher, he became a rehearsal pianist at the Connecticut Grand Opera at 17 and then at New York City Opera at 21. He worked as assistant to Daniel Barenboim on 'Tristan,' the Ring Cycle and 'Parsifal' at the Bayreuth Festival and debuted in 1991 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and in 1994 at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where Barenboim was music director. 'I probably shouldn't have been in front of some of the big symphony orchestras, Chicago Symphony, for sure. That came a little bit too soon,' Pappano said. 'But I survived and then hopefully you learn from those mistakes of timing. In terms of the long-term positions I've had, I don't think I've put a foot wrong.' He was music director of Oslo's Den Norske Opera from 1990-92, Brussels' Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie from 1992-2002 and Rome's Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia from 2005-23, often working with his wife, vocal coach Pamela Bullock. While Pappano grew up in the U.S., he has concentrated his career in Europe. 'There's a lot of turmoil in the States, well, all over the world at the moment, and I don't miss that,' he said. 'I'm concerned about the way America is going, if I'm honest. I also worry about the degree to which art in general is treated like some kind of elitist domain to an even greater degree than it is over here. We have to fight that sentiment over here because the easiest thing to cut in a budget is the arts budget.' Clive Gillinson, then LSO's managing director, engaged Pappano for a 1996 recording of Puccini's 'La Rondine' with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Roberto Alagna at London's Abbey Road Studios. 'I thought he should be given a chance as a symphonic conductor because there was very little track record,' said Gillinson, now Carnegie Hall's executive director. 'To be honest, in those early days, I didn't think he was a great symphonic conductor. It took him time.' Pappano led his first LSO concert performance the following January at the Barbican. 'It was clear right from the get-go that he kind of got the LSO and we very much got him,' said Neil Percy, a principal percussion who has been with the LSO since 1990. 'It's in his soul, man. You can see it in his skin. He just understands opera kind of like no other conductor that I've ever been fortunate enough to work with.' Pappano debuted at The Royal Opera in Puccini's 'La Bohème' in 1990 and was 32 when he became its youngest music director, following distinguished predecessors Rafael Kubelik, Georg Solti, Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink. Pappano announced in March 2021 he was switching to the LSO, an ensemble known for its work on movie soundtracks that include 'Star Wars.' Rattle had moved to the LSO in 2017 and decided he wanted to switch in 2023 to Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. 'We're chalk and cheese, as they say in England,' Pappano explained. 'With Simon Rattle there's an incredible precision in the approach to the playing,' said Kathryn McDowell, who succeeded Gillinson as the LSO's managing director. 'It's a different sound with Antonio Pappano... it's got a real sort of sheen.' Pappano is continuing to lead Covent Garden's production premieres of Barrie Kosky's staging of the Ring, with 'Die Walküre' opening May 1, 'Siegfried' next season and 'Götterdämmerung in 2026-27, but his successor, Jakub Hrůša, will be in charge of the full cycle in 2027-28. When Pappano conducted the finale of Maher's Symphony No. 1 in Naples, Florida, last week, he was struck by a realization. 'I've never had anything like this under my hands. What a lucky sod I am,' he recalled thinking. 'That life underneath every note, that was always the calling card of this orchestra. If you could stoke that flair, that theatricality that they have, it's quite something.'
