Latest news with #BarrieKosky
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Saul review – probing, dark and engrossing staging of Handel's oratorio
The Glyndebourne season continues with a revival by Donna Stirrup of Barrie Kosky's 2015 staging of Handel's Saul, widely regarded as one of the festival's finest achievements and the production that cemented Kosky's reputation in the UK as a director of remarkable originality. This is the first time I've seen it, having missed both its opening run and the 2018 revival, and it strikes me as an example of Kosky's work at its finest: probing, insightful, sometimes witty, sometimes dark, always utterly engrossing. Premiered in 1739, Saul has often been compared to King Lear. There is much of Shakespeare in this portrait by Handel and his librettist, Charles Jennens, of the Old Testament king whose mind slowly disintegrates under the challenges presented to him politically and privately by David after the death of Goliath. Mindful that the work also examines the moral arguments around dethroning an anointed king – still a huge issue in the wake of the Revolution of 1688 – Kosky updates the oratorio to the time of composition, though his 18th century is a stylised, hedonistic place, reminiscent of Hogarth or Fellini's Casanova in its gaudy seediness. Garish colours give way to black in the second half when Saul's behaviour drags his country into war. Kosky underpins the Shakespearean resonances by weaving four small roles together for a single performer (tenor Liam Bonthrone), effectively a jester, who stands in relation to Saul much as the Fool does to Lear. Jonathan Cohen conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with great subtlety and dramatic weight, admirably capturing the work's sometimes unsettling urgency. Christopher Purves (Saul) and Iestyn Davies (David) are both returning to the roles they played in 2015. Purves's snarling delivery has an almost expressionist ferocity, but he is of course a superb actor and his depiction of Saul's mental breakdown is at times almost distressingly vivid. Davies is his perfect foil, always calm and psychologically centred, suggesting unswerving certainties of faith. His voice remains unearthly in its beauty, and time stands still when he sings Oh Lord, Whose Mercies Numberless. The rest of the cast are equally strong. Sarah Brady's Merab is all hauteur and adamantine coloratura, in contrast to Soraya Mafi's softer voiced Michal. Linard Vrielink makes an outstanding Jonathan, handsomely lyrical, his love for David beautifully realised, while Bonthrone is wonderfully caustic as Kosky's newly created fool. The chorus, whether sashaying through one of Otto Pichler's classy dance routines, or negotiating Handel's complex counterpoint with perfect clarity, are simply sensational. At Glyndebourne until 24 July
New York Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Soprano Jumped Into the ‘Ring.' Now the Role Is Entirely Hers.
In Wagner's opera 'Die Walküre,' Sieglinde develops in the shadow of controlling men. 'This house and woman belong to Hunding,' she tells a stranger seeking refuge — who turns out to be Siegmund, her brother and lover, and the only man to show her true respect. But later, as Siegmund wonders aloud whether he will kill himself and his partner, rather than facing a future alone in the godly realm of Valhalla, she is fast asleep. Agency over Sieglinde's life choices passes from one man to another. How, then, does a performer make her mark while playing a character defined by absence? The Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw provides an answer in Barrie Kosky's new production of 'Die Walküre,' which continues through Saturday at the Royal Opera House in London. (It will be broadcast in cinemas on Wednesday.) She is offering a vividly psychological portrait of a woman whose spiritual core has been shattered, leaving behind a shell of a person, unable to settle in any emotional state. 'It's important to find the arc,' Romaniw said of Sieglinde's character development in a recent interview. From a starting point as 'the epitome of femininity (very caring, loyal),' the appearance of Siegmund prompts Sieglinde's 'reawakening.' Elation follows, then madness; when Sieglinde awakens from sleep in Act III, describing visions of Hunding's dogs — a symbol of potential retribution for her infidelity — the weight of guilt and shame drives her into despair. Sieglinde, Romaniw said, concludes by believing 'that dishonor is just the end.' Romaniw has become a regular at Covent Garden. She made her house debut in 2022 by replacing Anna Netrebko in Jonathan Kent's celebrated production of Puccini's 'Tosca.' Earlier this year, she portrayed a devastating Helena in Mark-Anthony Turnage's new opera 'Festen.' And for 'Die Walküre,' Romaniw is jumping in for another A-list soprano, Lise Davidsen, who has bowed out of her engagements because she is pregnant. Sieglinde is Romaniw's first major Wagner role. Historically, she has been known as a Puccinian, her lyric soprano more associated with roles like Tosca and Cio-Cio-San. By her own admission, 'Wagner's not something I think about often.' But for Kosky's production of the Wagner's four-opera 'Ring,' which is being rolled out over several seasons, the director has sought out singers making role debuts 'so they could come with absolutely no preconceptions to the rehearsal,' he said. Still, Sieglinde is not a role that singers take on at short notice. 'I've rarely seen a singer come in under that sort of pressure, doing that sort of role in this kind of production, and fearlessly and relentlessly work for seven weeks,' Kosky said. It's a risk that has paid off. The Times of London called Romaniw's 'O hehrstes Wunder' scene in Act III 'the most thrilling vocal moment in this 'Ring' so far.' Antonio Pappano, who is conducting the production, said by email: 'The evenness and warmth of the voice and her ability to inject each phrase with the right depth of feeling makes her ideal for this part.' Romaniw, he said, 'has made the role her own.' ROMANIW GREW UP near Swansea, Wales, and was raised by her mother, a police officer working on domestic violence cases, and her grandparents. Nobody in her family was especially musical, but there was something operatic about her Ukrainian grandfather, a confident, eccentric character who would break into song regularly while walking down the street. She moved to London to attend the Guildhall School of Music and Drama without having ever seen an opera. (Verdi's 'Falstaff,' her first, was a fun introduction. 'Then I saw 'Capriccio,'' she said with a laugh. 'I still can't get into it.') In just her second year of college, Romaniw represented Wales in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, next to singers with contracts at La Scala, the Bolshoi Theater and the Metropolitan Opera. 'What I had was fearlessness,' she said. 'And I was very, very gullible.' Romaniw was surprised, then, when she felt fear. While in Houston, on the Young Artist program there, sudden lucidity onstage led to major performance anxiety, she said. 'You can put yourself in some really crippling positions where you inhibit yourself, because you're too obsessed with wanting everything to be perfect,' she said. This anxiety, added to the feeling of 'too many cooks' involved with her technique, had her returning to Britain feeling like 'a nervous wreck.' It took six months to get psychologically ready to take any singing advice again. Romaniw has been an ambassador for the charity Help Musicians for the past five years, and is happy to speak about topics like stage fright, weight changes and mental health issues, which previous generations of opera stars might have shied away from. 'Selfishly, I used to quite enjoy it if I saw someone of quite high status making mistakes,' she said. 'I was like, 'See, they're human!' I would have given anything for someone to say, 'I sang Gilda at E.N.O. and I missed the top note.'' In recent years, Romaniw's voice has developed as her body has changed. When she was pregnant in 2023, she was singing Ariadne in Strauss's 'Ariadne auf Naxos' at Garsington Opera. Suddenly she felt her sound deepen. 'It was really refreshing and surprising to sink into these long, big, broad lines,' she said. 'My breath work got better, because I had that lower-down support that helped me feel like I could just soar over the orchestra.' Soaring over an orchestra is necessary to sing a Wagner role, and it's a perennial worry for performers who take on his operas. Romaniw's sound is lighter than Davidsen's, but at Covent Garden it traveled with clarity, across the register. 'With the whole Wagner thing, I've always known to be careful,' she said. In the future, she expects to take on two more lyric roles from his works: Elsa in 'Lohengrin' and Eva in 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.' She doubts, though, that Brünnhilde will come any time soon. 'I'm probably on this Wagner bus now,' she said, even if she is determined to get off that bus at regular intervals. 'There's always time for Wagner.'
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.
Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Die Walküre review — brilliantly imagined Wagner (with extra zombies)
Twenty months is a long time to wait for the second instalment of a serialised thriller. But even before the music of Die Walküre starts, Barrie Kosky — directing the Royal Opera's unfolding cycle of Wagner's Ring — reminds us of the main talking point of Das Rheingold, the first instalment. That naked old lady, representing Earth in all its exhausted vulnerability, is back. Again she covers her eyes in despair. Again she will be a mute witness on this epic journey to the world's end. And again that journey is evoked by Kosky with a startling theatricality that goes hand in glove with Antonio Pappano's vivid conducting of the music and the Royal Opera orchestra's magnificent playing. There's not much scenery, and certainly
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Revivals Of Classic Weill, Chekhov Plays Offered Now In Brooklyn
Top revivals of two classics—Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera and Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard—are being performed in Brooklyn this month. The Threepenny Opera is being presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music by BAM and St. Ann's Warehouse through April 6, while The Cherry Orchard, a new version of the play by Benedict Andrews that originally ran at the Donmar Warehouse in London, will be offered at St. Ann's Warehouse through April 27. 16 December 2019, Berlin: Oliver Reese (l-r), artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, conductor Adam Benzwi and Barrie Kosky, director and artistic director of the Komische Oper Berlin, will be at a press conference at the Berliner Ensemble. Kosky stages a new production of the Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill at the Berliner Ensemble. The premiere will be celebrated in early 2021. Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa (Photo by Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images) dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images The production of Bertolt Brecht's and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera was created by director Barrie Kosky; it is performed by the Berliner Ensemble, which was founded by Brecht and whose home remains the theater where the opera premiered in 1928. As BAM explains, 'Murderous antihero Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) slashes through Victorian London in The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht's scandalous satire that electrified Weimar-era German audiences 400 times in just two years after its 1928 debut. 'A century later, Brecht's razor-sharp critique of unbridled capitalism still cuts deep—an eerily prophetic vision of a well-fed society teetering on the brink, propelled by Kurt Weill's infectious, jazz-infused score. 'Barrie Kosky's Berliner Ensemble production is sly and perversely sexy, embracing seediness and cynicism with glitzy disillusion and more than a hint of danger. A master showman, Kosky manages to beguile us through the familiar rise and fall of Brecht's sociopathic leading man, adding a knowing creepiness to his unrepentant antics. 'As Mack the Knife's indelible melody lingers, this sleek, elemental staging amplifies the play's knife-edge allure, proving its savage indictment of greed remains as urgent and seductive as ever,' BAM concluded. LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 02: Benedict Andrews attends the press night after party for "The Cherry Orchard" at The Donmar Warehouse on May 02, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by)Discussing its Chekov production, St. Ann's Warehouse said, 'In this in-the-round staging, the international cast arrive all at once and remain visible throughout the show, free to improvise and inhabit the characters' sacred home that will soon be gone. In the The Cherry Orchard Ranevskaya and her aristocratic household are confronted by the demands of a changing world. The tensions between the past and future, the personal and the political, are explored with urgency and passion while the family grapples with the inevitable loss.' Andrews, the theater continued, 'has developed a reputation as one of the world's leading interpreters of Chekhov. With the critically acclaimed The Cherry Orchard, he takes on the writer's masterpiece, contemporizing elements of the text in an unbridled, playful, and devastating vision that feels, (The Evening Standard said), 'entirely true to the spirit of the original.'' According to St. Ann's, Andrews said, 'I just love being in the rehearsal room with actors and Chekhov, it is the greatest gift. It invites enormous play, enormous exploration. It's a very democratic, collective, exploratory process where there's room for people to make offers and search for the life of the play together. By us putting the audience all the way around, there's an openness to it, it's only, only about the actors, their contact, and how they play with each other, and how that resonates with an audience. That collective experience is all I'm interested in.' St. Ann's previously offered Andrews' production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Gillian Anderson, Vanessa Kirby and Ben Foster. In an interview this week with Andrews said the text he created for his Chekhov production is 'direct and contemporary,' though he did retain Russian references. He also praised the intimacy of St. Ann's theater. Chekhov's characters, he added, live in a society 'that's on the brink of change and uncertainty, there's a storm on the horizon.' In today's 'time of division, (for the audience) to watch an ensemble play like this together I find really moving,' he concluded.
