Posts Tagged ‘Bayerischer Staatsopernchor’

Mastersingers’ Depression

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 17, 2016 MUNICH — Beckmesser blew his brains out at the end of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg last night here in the Nationaltheater. That was after first aiming his gun at the back of the head of Sachs, and after a graphically brutal beating by David and bat-wielding apprentices had […]

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Die Fledermaus Returns

Sunday, January 31st, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 31, 2016 MUNICH — Three years ago Bavarian State Opera’s yearly Silvester performances of Die Fledermaus came to a sudden, poorly excused halt. Never mind that they were a global signature of the company; Carlos Kleiber famously led ten of them. As substitutes, the powers-that-be provided La traviata (Verdi was […]

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Ettinger Drives Aida

Wednesday, September 30th, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: September 30, 2015 MUNICH — Bavarian State Opera’s irredeemably banal 2009 Aida has been spiffed up and its awkward action scheme apparently restudied for a fall run here. Even so, the honors at Monday’s performance (Sept. 28) belonged firmly with the musicians, instrumental and vocal. Mannheim-based conductor Dan Ettinger exerted a […]

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Manon, Let’s Go

Thursday, December 11th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 11, 2014 MUNICH — Puccini lost even before the curtain went up Nov. 15 on Hans Neuenfels’ conceptual new staging of Manon Lescaut for Bavarian State Opera. Anna Netrebko, its titular star, abandoned the project in quiet disgust, understandably it turned out. Disaster did not follow, but the night and […]

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Festive Sides

Friday, August 29th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 29, 2014 MUNICH — Staged works and the legendary Lied evenings hold the limelight here at the annual Opernfestspiele, begun 139 years ago. But veins of chamber music and, since 2008, choral programming run through the five-week schedule, lending scope and affirming organizer Bayerische Staatsoper’s depth of musicianship. The chamber […]

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Blacher Channels Maupassant

Monday, July 7th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 7, 2014 MUNICH — It was standing room only for Die Flut yesterday (July 6). Not only was Boris Blacher’s 1946 radio opera sold out, but the audience was expected to stand or stroll through it, as directed by Aernout Mik at a former riding hall here. Improbably part of […]

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Verdi’s Lady Netrebko

Saturday, June 28th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: June 28, 2014 MUNICH — Verdi’s Macbeth is back, for its eighth run in six years at Bavarian State Opera, this time to open the dressy Opernfestspiele. The production’s giant chandelier, plastic sheeting, silly tent and field of skulls are now globally familiar, even if they don’t exactly transport us to […]

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Rigoletto Lands in Stadium

Friday, December 21st, 2012

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 21, 2012 MUNICH — They all laughed eight years ago when Bavarian State Opera set Verdi’s Rigoletto on the Planet of the Apes, and the production fast vanished. Naturally, then, the return of the deformed ducal jester in a new régie last Saturday (Dec. 15) promised relative normalcy, perhaps even […]

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