Tuesday, November 5

Tag: Christian Van Horn

Les Contes d’Hoffmann – MET Opera Live in HD at Biografen Kino, Lund
REVIEWS

Les Contes d’Hoffmann – MET Opera Live in HD at Biografen Kino, Lund

Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann is the most enduring ‘serious’ opera from a composer better known for his operettas and Gina Lapinski’s 2016 revival of Bartlett Sher’s evocative Kafkaesque production provides the perfect vehicle in which Offenbach’s story – in turn witty, erotic, and macabre – and highly melodious music come together to form a deeply and satisfying whole. Set in the 19th C, the great storyteller Hoffmann (Benjamin Bernheim) is losing himself to drink. His rival in love, Councillor Lindorf (Christian Van Horn), claims that Hoffmann knows nothing of the heart, and so goads Hoffmann into telling the tales of his three great loves – each destroyed by a villain who bears an uncanny resemblance to Lindorf… First Hoffmann tells of his infatuation for the mechanical doll, ...
Lucia Di Lammermoor – Met Opera
North West

Lucia Di Lammermoor – Met Opera

Producer Simon Stone provides a modern take on Donizetti’s classic opera and, putting the occasional embellishment aside, delivers one of the most complete operatic productions of the season. Fallen on hard times, Enrico (Artur Ruciński) has arranged an advantageous marriage for his sister, Lucia (Nadine Sierra), but Normanno (Alok Kumar) reveals that she is in love with Enrico’s enemy, Edgardo (Javier Camarena). As Lucia and Alisa (Deborah Nansteel) wait for Edgardo, Lucia reveals a recent dream which Alisa interprets as a portent of doom. When Edgardo arrives, he explains that he has to leave on a mission and he and Lucia exchange vows. Normanno obtains forged evidence to suggest that Edgardo is involved with another woman and when Enrico shows it to Lucia, she is heartbroken and a...