Soloman Howard Archives - North West End UK

19May

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

London

Die Walküre – Royal Ballet & Opera

Following 2023’s Das Rheingold, conductor Antonio Pappano and director Barrie Kosky reunite to continue the mythical adventure with Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second work of Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. On a stormy night, fate brings Siegmund (Stanislas de Barbeyrac) to the door of Sieglinde (Natalya Romaniw), the fearful wife of bully Hunding (Soloman Howard), unleashing a love with the power to end worlds. Meanwhile, in the realm of the gods, an epic battle ensues between their ruler Wotan (Christopher Maltman) and his rebellious daughter, Brünnhilde (Elisabet Strid), after his wife Fricka (Marina Prudenskaya) has laid her own law down to him, and the battle of the Valkyries – Helmwige (Maida Hundeling); Ortlinde (Katie Lowe); Gerhilde (Lee Bisset); ...

La Forza del Destino – Met Opera Live in HD

It has been some thirty years since there was a new production of this opera at the Met and twenty years since that’s last production with a more recent attempt in 2017 faltering due to financial reasons. Well, the financial challenges remain, as they do for all of us, so it was a treat to take in Director Mariusz Treliński’s dark contemporary re-telling which coming in at almost four and a half hours, including two intervals, is a big production in every sense. Leonora (Lise Davidsen) plans to elope with Alvaro (Brian Jagde) but when her father, the Marquis of Calatrava (Soloman Howard), storms in, Alvaro’s attempts to make peace accidentally results in her father’s death. Leonora flees from her revengeful brother, Carlo (Igor Golovatenko), and whilst Preziosilla (Judit Kutasi) sings a...

Das Rheingold – Royal Opera House (Live Transmission)

When you put two geniuses together there is no guarantee that what they create will match the expectation; there is no such concern here as Antonio Pappano conducts Barrie Kosky’s bold new imagining of Wagner’s Das Rheingold with the musical brilliance of the orchestra matched by an outstanding cast. This production marks the start of a new Ring Cycle for The Royal Opera and this is undoubtedly a prelude of exciting things to come from the wonderful pairing of Pappano and Kosky. Any new production of Wagner’s Ring has to remain faithful to its mythical origins but also needs to find a way to connect to its modern audience, but that balance is achieved and some in this vibrant theatrical production set at the beginning of time and of life. Rufus Didwiszus’s simple yet symbolic monochr...