The world's first "Twitter opera", Twitterdammerung, has been given its premier at London's Royal Opera House. Opera critic Igor Toronyi-Lalic gives his verdict Telegraph.co.uk.
I wasn't holding out much hope for Twitterdammerung: the Twitter Opera. The dubious pun in the title didn't help. And I'd passed my eye over the few extracts that the Royal Opera House had offered up with pride as a preview, and the word 'cod' doesn't really do it justice: "It is a curious story – hear my tale,/Although my name was never Ishmael."
Yikes. Add to this only three days of rehearsal and not much more time for the musical composition, and you might understand why I brought a big, baggy jumper deliberately to hide my head for the moment when I died of empathetic embarrassment.
But the jumper proved of no value, as what unfolded before me was actually not that bad at all. I mean actually watchable, listenable and rather funny. Don't get me wrong; madness and messiness, in the main, did dictate the tone.
You had a duck of destiny, a bird-infatuated nihilist, a falsetto-singing ginger cat called Tobermory and gratuitous references to Deloitte the sponsors, all of which tumbled along in the foyer – note: not the main stage – with little rhyme or reason.
Remember, not only was this libretto confected from the tweets of 900 minds, the offering we heard was but a mere extract of this mad confection. All of which is water off a duck's back for anyone used to the truly mad operas of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.
Besides, hidden amid the nonsense were some great moments: a tiny but pretty duet, some carefully-crafted musical sequences from Marc Teitler and Helen Porter, and humour by the bucket load.
The format lent itself to gags and what resulted was a decent operatic sketch show: a sequence of often-surreal, Vic and Bob-like skits, most of which fell flat, but some of which had the audience – mostly thirty- and fortysomethings – roaring with laughter.
Compare it to its contemporary competition and the work fared surprisingly well. Hannah Pedley and Andrew Slater's acting and singing were exemplary, as was Lindy Tennent-Brown's piano accompaniment.
Philip Herbert's narration did the pompous trick. And, while the competition is admittedly pretty weak, the gags were some of the best I'd ever heard on the opera floor, proving that it's not the art form that's unfunny, merely the minds of our ageing composers and librettists.
Of course, in the end, one could not block out the noxious premise of this stunt. Accessible opera for the masses? Why not try a performance of Carmen?
And, ultimately, Twitterdammerung couldn't transcend or hide that fact that it was little more than a cheap gimmick. But as cheap gimmicks go, this was a good 'un.
David Alden’s searing production of Jenùfa receives its first revival since winning two Olivier Awards in 2007, including one for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for Amanda Roocroft, who returns in the title role. Jenùfa is Janáček's most popular work. Ostensibly bleak — a stepmother commits an unspeakable act of cruelty — this nonetheless remains an opera where love and forgiveness triumph. After her success in Philip Glass’s Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Michaela Martens plays the role of the Stepmother, while the outstanding Norwegian Eivind Gullberg Jensen conducts what is undoubtedly one of the greatest operatic scores of the 20th century.
The last time EMI Classics brought out a studio recording of a full-length opera - perhaps the most expensive thing that any record company can produce - the label swore that it really would be the last. So it's terrific news that EMI has changed its mind and put out this lavish Madama Butterfly, particularly given that its chief rival, Universal Classics, is busy diverting all available budgets to crossover and jazz-lite. Even recent purely classical recordings from its stable have sounded less like they were produced in a studio than in somebody's garden shed, reports Neil Fisher in The Times.
This Butterfly, however, is immaculately recorded, spacious and evocative. Best of all, it gives maximum impact to Antonio Pappano's magisterial conducting of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. The whole is ravishingly played and beautifully detailed; it might be a cliché, but this Roman orchestra have Puccini's swelling melodies in their blood. Worth singling out the ladies of the Santa Cecilia Chorus, too, whose featherlike touch builds magic out of Cio-Cio-San's first entrance.
And Angela Gheorghiu, who sings that fearsome role? When they record together, Pappano says, they're like “ham and eggs”. And she's certainly not hammy here: banished are any diva-like mannerisms. Instead, she makes the most of what opera buffs neatly call her “morbidezza” (and we clumsily call her “vocal softness”) carefully to etch out Butterfly's passionate vulnerability.
There's a but. She spends far too long applying fluttery Japaneseries, the downfall of any Butterfly who tries to get too native. Puccini's heroine has never been and never will be a convincing portrait of a 15-year-old geisha, so when Gheorghiu tries to apply the teenage make-up it just sounds artificial. And, at the other end of the opera's expressive range, she doesn't have the heft - or perhaps the gravitas - to deliver the full impact of Butterfly's self-sacrifice; come the end, and she hasn't quite nailed the ascent from duped innocent to heroic tragedienne.
Still, you can't fault her diligence, nor the rest of the cast's dramatic flair. Jonas Kaufmann's husky Pinkerton is excellent; if he skimps on ardour, that's because Butterfly's fake husband is more in lust than love. Enkelejda Shkosa contributes a moving Suzuki; Fabio Capitanucci a more spontaneous and less censorious Sharpless than usual. But Pappano is the icing on the cake. The cost: just £13.70 from EMI Classics.
I was so sad to read, in the Royal Opera House About the House, of the most untimely death of Phyllida Ritter, for so long the Director of the Friends of Covent Garden which she took over upon the retirement of Ken Davison twenty, or so, years ago. I first met Phyllida when she was working at E.N.O and was privileiged to organise the very first, inaugural tour, which was run by the Friends of Covent Garden when she joined in 1988. She was a lovely, kind and gentle woman with whom it was a pleasure to work and who will be very deeply missed