Charles Edwards Archives - North West End UK

Opera North: Cavalleria rusticana / Aleko –The Lowry

21Mar

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Opera North: Cavalleria rusticana / Aleko –The Lowry

Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana is usually paired with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci but director Karolina Sofulak has made an inspired choice to pair it with Rachmaninov’s rarely heard Aleko with some subtle and intricate linking of the two pieces which by and large comes off. In Cavalleria rusticana, it transpires that Turiddù (Andrés Presno) and Lola (Helen Évora) were once lovers, but when he left to join the army, Lola married another man, Alfio (Robert Hayward). Although Turridù finds consolation in the arms of Santuzza (Giselle Allen), his obsessive passion for Lola still burns fiercely as he supports his mother Lucia (Anne-Marie Owens), setting the stage for a tale of faithlessness, jealousy and violence, set in a rural community where the church maintains an iron grip on the souls of...

Don Carlos – The Metropolitan Opera, New York

27Mar

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

REVIEWS

Don Carlos – The Metropolitan Opera, New York

The Met Opera’s original five-act French version of Verdi’s epic opera of doomed love among royalty is in fact an amended version of the 1867 Paris edition with some omissions as well as the addition of elements from later Italian versions, but if the intention was to serve up the best version possible then there is no doubt that this comes pretty close with the magnificence of its delivery. Photo: Ken Howard It's a tough story with far too real parallels to events unfolding in the Ukraine which serves to reinforce the piece’s uncompromising assessment of the ways of human nature as we are thrust via a love triangle into the courtly world of 16th Century Spain complete with its religious Inquisition and destructive suppression of protest in Flanders. At almost five hours, there is...

17Dec

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Best of Enemies – Young Vic

Travelling back to 1968, we are thrown of where to look. Television screens dotted in all directors, visual designs bringing the floor to life and a sudden influx of the famous figures who used to run America’s screens. This incredibly insightful, heated performance of America’s leading news channels battling out to pull in the most viewers, follows the ABC network trying out a new form of entertainment: putting opposite political views together and discussing. Where this may be a very popular and everyday occurrence for this day and age, we see how this now, almost obsessive form of television was brought to life. In particular we follow William F Buckley, a conservative popular figure battle it out with the Liberal, ‘Gore Vidal’ as they discuss the upcoming election. Through these cun...

20Jul

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Faust – Royal Opera House

Everybody knows the tale of Faust although Gounod’s popular five-act, Parisian grand opera from 1859 is in fact adapted from Michel Carré’s play ‘Faust et Marguerite’ which was itself based on Part I of Goethe’s epic poem Faust. Very much reflective of the nature of Second-Empire Paris at that time, the obvious question is whether its themes remain relevant and recognisable to a 21st C audience. Director David McVicar wisely recognised that human nature doesn’t really change and the issues of sensuality and hedonism, religion and morality, bourgeois consumption versus socialist redistribution, to name but a few at the heart of this opera, continue to go hand in hand, and his richly layered 2004 production for Royal Opera House brilliantly captured these through the artificial edifices o...