Thursday 29 October 2009

Arabella and Tristan in NNTT's next season

Today NNTT announced part of their next season, new productions of Arabella in October 2010 and Tristan und Isolde in December 2010 and January 2011. Ulf Schirmer and Philippe Arlaud will present the former with costumes by Hanae Mori on 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 and 17 October, which seems to be the opening for 2010/11 season. The latter is performed under the baton of Kazushi Ohno and directed by David McVicar on 25 and 28 December and 4, 7 and 10 January. No singer name is given, but popular ones are expected. The whole programme will be announced in January.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

OA to release 2 Bayreuth live recordings

As announced in August by the festival authority and written about dates by WagneroperaNET on Twitter, Opus Arte is releasing 2 recent live recordings at Bayreuth: Ring cycle in 2008 (CDs) and Tristan und Isolde in 2009 (DVDs and Blu-rays). The Ring cycle set is scheduled for release on 26 October according to Presto Classical, an online shop, and Amazon.co.uk but Opus Arte seems to put the date on 1 November. For the Tristan DVDs, the shop announces the date as 4 January 2010, and for Blu-rays Amazon the one as 26 October, yet the label nothing. The authority makes no reference to details. Anyway, they come to hand soon.

Monday 19 October 2009

Tokyo Ring's ticket sales to start soon

Ticket sales for general public of the latter half of Keith Warner's Tokyo Ring by NNTT in this spring start in this weekend, on Saturday for Siegfried and Sunday for Götterdämmerung. Sales for members of Club the Atre, friends of NNTT, began on 10 October and many tickets has already been bought especially on holidays and weekends. Therefore it is so difficult to purchase good or unexpensive ones, but worth trying. The former half — Das Rheingold and Die Walküre — was performed in the last spring and got much applause.

Saturday 17 October 2009

SFT announces 2010 festival season

Friday, Spring Festival in Tokyo announced their programme 2010. From 14 March to 10 April, some 40 performances will be held in Ueno, mainly Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. The most interesting one is Parsifal in concert form on 2 and 4 April, which will be conducted by Ulf Schirmer and sung by Burkhard Fritz and Michaela Schster. The second one is a concert which Riccardo Muti conducts Carmina Burana with a special orchestra for the festival, Desiree Rancatore, Max Emanuel Cencic and Ludovic Tézier sing (9 and 10 April). Other interesting performances are a recital by Yuu Kosuge on 26 March and one by Ricarda Merbeth on 5 April. Ticket sale starts on 28 November.

Sunday 11 October 2009

Nikikai: Madama Butterfly

Quick evaluation: B