Reimann - Lear (Berlin, 2026)

Aribert Reimann - Lear

Komische Oper Berlin, 2026

Nicholas Carter, Bar­rie Kos­ky, Scott Hendricks, Di­mi­try Iva­shchen­ko, Phi­lipp Mei­er­hö­fer, Jo­han­nes Dunz, Ivan Tur­šić, Gün­ter Pa­pen­dell, Ar­yeh Nuss­baum­ Co­hen, Brenton Ryan, Ro­sie Al­dri­dge, Ni­cole Che­va­lier, Pen­ny So­fro­nia­dou, Dag­mar Man­zel, Simon Wallfisch

Flughafen Templehof, Hangar 4 - 18th September 2026

Where else but in Germany and Berlin would you get to see two operas of such great extremes from one night to the next? This week at the Komische Oper you can see the full horror of madness, violence and the destruction of any basic human values in Aribert Reimann's Lear one night and the next evening at the Deutsche Oper experience the delirious eccentricities of Stockhausen's Mittwoch aus Licht that includes a flying Helicopter String Quartet and makes the case for music uniting the cosmos in peace, love and understanding. I think this is what you would call #Operamaxxing if opera ever were to become a modern trend, which is highly unlikely. Anyway I think Wagner did it 150 years ago, long before social media, when he created the Bayreuth Festival.

A new production of Aribert Reimann’s opera adaptation of Shakespeare's 'King Lear' in Berlin was always going to be an exceptional event but you couldn't help having a few minor misgivings in advance about some of the choices made for the staging. Those would definitely be minor misgivings though as, no matter what, Lear is one of the greatest operas ever written, or at least based on one of the greatest plays ever written and certainly one of the greatest adaptations of Shakespeare in opera. I'm prepared to stand over that first statement about it being one of the greatest operas ever written though, certainly based on how it eventually played out here in Barrie Kosky's new production for the Komische Oper. This turned out to be one of the most remarkable events I have ever experienced.

There was however initially just a flicker of doubt beforehand about whether Scott Hendricks would be able to carry off a major role like this. Hendricks has been variable in my experience: I don't think he is suited for the specific requirements and challenges of a Verdi or a Puccini baritone, but I have seen him give an exceptional performances in Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel, and more recently as Alberich in the Das Rheingold of Romeo Castellucci's aborted Ring Cycle at La Monnaie in Brussels. His committed performance there suggested that he could certainly give Reimann a go, even if you couldn't quite envision how it would pan out since Reimann really is a challenge on a whole other level. 

The other minor concern - or maybe rather call it an unknown - was the choice of the Komische Oper to stage the work in Hangar 4 of the now disused Templehof airport. Certainly the first of impression entering the venue was that it was going to be hard to fill that vast stage. Not so much a concern with the music filling the cavernous hall, it being more of a necessity as Lear has an orchestral volume level that few can match, not least with a whole battery of drummers and percussionists at the opposite end of the stage from the orchestra. 'Blow wind, blow' was certainly always going to blow you away.

Also not ideal was recognition that the singers would all be wearing microphones to effectively project to the audience in the round but in practice, with the volume this needs to be sung at, you could hear most of the performers acoustically - at least from where I was sitting - and be able to locate their voice directionally. Either that or someone (that would be Holger Schwark) was doing an incredible job on the sound design. One thing I had no concerns about whatsoever, aside from the unquestionable quality of the work itself, was the direction of Barrie Kosky. This I believe was the first time out of his many productions that I have seen where I have actually been present at the live performance. His recent work in particular has been outstanding (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and there a good reason why he was chief director at the Komische for ten years and clearly still has a good relationship with the Berlin opera house.

With Kosky at the helm, any minor misgivings soon came to nothing once the performance, the drama, the music and the extraordinary stage production pulled you in for a two hour and twenty minutes performance with no interval and no respite. And it didn't take long to reach a point of total immersion in the drama partly because Shakespeare's introduction of the characters is so immediate and partly since Reimann focussed concentration of the work retains the full essence of the power of that opening scene between Lear and his three daughters (and across the whole opera, it has to be said) in as full an adherence to Shakespeare's words in intent and translation as it's possible to achieve. Scott Hendricks rose to the challenges, impressing immediately, his interpretation superb and committed. He was helped somewhat by the fact that the role is mostly Sprechtgesang, but that's not to say that it doesn't still have considerable challenges.

Considerable challenges for everyone, in fact. It soon became obvious to me - although having seen and reviewed two different previous productions of the work (Munich, 2021 and Hamburg, 2014) I already knew this - that Reimann's vocal writing for this work is one of the most impressive in all opera. Bel canto it is not, Wagnerian not so much either, but perhaps the difference is that it's one where the voice is used to its fullest expression across every single role, across every single note in the opera. Every voice approaches a controlled scream, as if on the edge of hysteria and madness, but it's also completely musical within the range that the composer pitches it. The orchestra is similarly charged and pitched, expressive but filling in all those nuances that might otherwise be lost in the condensing of the work, instead only making it even more dark and disturbing.

Dark and disturbing. I wish I had the ability or space to analyse just what Shakespeare achieves here in 'King Lear', but it's not really pertinent to the opera. In opera performance - modernised here only in so far as contemporary formal costumes and suits for businessmen/royalty and modern combat gear and guns for the troops - it's about how much the work can connect to the world we see around us, a work that speaks of the kind of people in power where madmen lead the blind. It's all there in Shakespeare and a director has all they need there without having to add a great deal more. Reimann himself had experience of a madman leading the blind. It's said that the thunderous noise that the percussionists and orchestra make during the 'Blow wind, blow' storm scene that sounds like the end of the world was inspired by the composer's memory of the air raid bombing and destruction of Berlin at the end of the war. It really does sound like it.

Barrie Kosky doesn't have the luxury of a lot of props and sets in this venue where the performance is essentially in the round, but he has a stage, he has brilliant singers and, as if they don't have enough to contend with, he makes sure they cover every inch of the vast platform with constant movement. Brenton Ryan as Edmund relishes the wide space, casting his arrogantly evil 'who's-going-to-take-me-on’ challenge to the audience as he strides from end to end, from corner to corner, but the same applies to everyone in the cast. It's not just choreography to make sure that they reach everyone in the round - which is essential nonetheless - but it applies to the pace of the opera, to the intensity of their mad designs and their headlong rush into self-destruction.

Minimalist through necessity, this was not however anything like a static performance, and if the venue ensured that this couldn't be a traditional proscenium arch, park-and-bark opera performance, it's all the better for it. A raised platform sweeping across the stage is well used for declamation, for running lengths, for Lear's men to gather around and carouse. Blocks of tiles are lifted from the stage to create holes, pits and graves, there is superb use of spot lighting, smoke fills the stage at the scene of utter madness - madder than any mad scene in bel canto - and there are thunderous thuds of the boots of troops piling onto the stage as the whole play and opera collapses under the weight of its characters violent excesses, or under Reimann's merciless score maybe. It's an incredible performance of an incredible work of opera, viscerally experienced in an overpowering account conducted by Nicholas Carter in this unusual but suitable venue.

I'm not sure there is any value in enumerating and listing the qualities of each of the performers individually. Every one of them, without exception, gave an impressive performance. Goneril (Ro­sie Al­dri­dge), Regan (Ni­cole Che­va­lier, who has also sung Reimann's Medea at the Komische) and Cordelia (Pen­ny So­fro­nia­dou) are a formidable trio as Lear's daughters, a force unlike any other in opera. Scott Hendricks was authoritative as their father, unquestionably putting in the best performance I've ever seen from him, this opera (and Kosky's direction I would say) undoubtedly bringing the best out of him. 

Since I've started then, the other family trio of Gloucester, Edgar and Edmund are less elaborated upon than in Shakespeare, but this subplot remains an important element that spawns even greater acts of atrocity. All the performances were notable for making this count, with Gün­ter Pa­pen­dell as Gloucester; the extraordinary Ar­yeh Nuss­baum­ Co­hen's Edgar challenging the patriarchal order in his queered transformation as Poor Tom; and Brenton Ryan as Edmund bringing full dramatic force that pushes the work to greater levels of horror and inhumanity, resulting in Regan chewing and spitting out Gloucester's eyeball. Chevalier's Regan was already showing twitchy signs of madness in first scene, and it's clear that power only intensifies it, which is indeed part of the premise of the play. Maybe not chewing eyeballs, but we have all heard of similar abuses and worse atrocities taking place in the modern world. This Lear offers us no comfortable assurances - and I can't say Stockhausen's vision of the communion of those opposing forces of good and evil made a convincing counter-argument the following evening in Berlin.

External links: Komische Oper

Wilson - Necromancer (Farpoint CD, 2026)

Ian Wilson - Necromancer

Farpoint Recordings, 2026

Dario Calderone, Lina Andonovska, Cathal Roche, Alex Petcu

CD and Digital Download

As I mentioned in my review of a recent performance of a new composition Adam's Rib, the voice has been an intriguing and multifaceted variable in several of Ian Wilson's recent works, most obviously in Lost Voices but also even in the 'lost voice' of Orpheus in Orpheus Down. What is interesting about Ian Wilson's 'voice' in the music of Necromancer is that it operates on different levels that reveal and illuminate different aspects of what might otherwise be a challenging work. Even the instruments and the musicians chosen to play the piece all bring a unique voice that determines the narrative drive, colouring the imagery and the inspiration behind it.

As a Belfast born composer, or indeed as anyone born in Northern Ireland who has lived through the height of Troubles, how you process that unquestionably formative experience is different for everyone. For many it's something that you can only acknowledge much later in life - the Troubles having ended over 30 years ago (supposedly) - and often it seems from a safer more distanced perspective. In my case I’ve found some of the most powerful reflections on those times not dating from the period, but from a reflective view written many years after the events by creative new Northern Irish writers of fiction like Anna Burns, Olivia Fitzsimons and Liadan Ní Chuinn, some of whom would have been too young or even yet born to experience the worst days of the Troubles. For Ian Wilson, it is a book of photographs "The memories of others" taken back in the day by Japanese photojournalist Akihiko Okamura that inspired a response, a "musical exorcism" reflecting on these images from the past viewed in the context of memory from the distance of today.

Analysing or providing a critical response to a piece of music from such a personal space can be difficult and probably not instructive. It's clearly a genuine artistic response that combines experience with the ability to express that musically, which is something that is clearly never in doubt when it comes to this composer’s work. The choice of these four remarkable musicians to play it ensures that the work stands on its own terms and its underlying 'narrative' is expressed to its fullness. Each musician and instrument has a significant role to play in not just creating a musical soundtrack for the photographs that inspire each of the pieces or merely echo them, but independent of them they come together to evoke the sensibility, a mood, a memory that lies behind the images, even contributing some controlled improvisation to the notated score, essential to the unpredictable explosive nature of the subject.

Percussionist Alex Petcu you would imagine plays an important role in that, and it's not just for clattering sounds of marching bands, burning bonfires or rioting mobs. There is a delicacy to the opening prelude (Still life with milk bottles), the familiar (to those of us of a certain age) tinkle of milk bottles on a doorstep that nonetheless carries the ominous edge that they may well be used later for Molotov cocktails. There is a narrative line then in the subsequent pieces, not strictly linear, but expanding to carry subtle hints at deeper motivations, sentiments and context. That is achieved precisely through the use of instruments, the subsequent percussive explosion of Bonfire settling into an urgent stirring of emotions in the double bass of Dario Calderone; the breathiness of Lina Andonovska's contrabass flute and Cathal Roche's bass clarinet could be wind blowing on the embers or they could allude to the human element and emotive impact blending with the sparks and crackling.

It is incredible that there is so much expressed in that short piece alone, but it also has its own qualities as a striking piece of music. The whistle of flight and crash of those Milk bottle molotovs in the subsequent section is a little more musically descriptive but again, it has a rich blend of musical elements, space and silence to allow the listener to consider the impact of the destruction they caused to people and the vehicles and homes they were usually aimed at. (Although I am too young to remember the specific event, I do remember the terror of those days when we once had a petrol filled milk bottle thrown into our backyard back at the start of the Troubles in 1969. Fortunately it failed to ignite). An Interlude reflecting on those put out of her homes gives you room to consider a worse eventuality. Again, having been pulled out of a bombed building on another occasion (virtually unscathed), it's something that I can personally relate to.

I have to admit that even on a first listen, I found that I didn't need the titles to follow the sequence, the music independently telling their own story divorced from the images that inspired them (I have a copy of the photos inspired the music, but they aren't reproduced in the CD edition for copyright reasons), and my reflections took on their own direction inspired by the music. That is surely an equally valid response, as is just simply letting the music speak to you in whatever way feels right, but there is little doubt that it is intrinsically tied up with the settings suggested by the images and it's immensely rewarding to try to connect with them, but even the titles of the pieces tell you everything you need to know.

Mopping up the Blood, for example, sounds like it could be harrowing - and indeed there is what sounds like a frenzied panic of rubbed strings, hyperventilated breathing on the wind instruments and the percussive echo of the impact of an explosion still ringing in the ears at start of the piece but it is actually develops into a deep, reflective and sorrowful piece. The ever varying nature of the experience and the response to it continues after another Interlude to two richly musical pieces that are lighter and easy to engage and identify with. Street Altar and Children with bunting and police landrover both again have that layered quality, children from both sides of the community making the most of play from found materials in rundown working class streets where scenes of atrocities have taken place. The innocence of the situations - the music not suggesting any sense of irony in the juxtaposition - reflect an outlook oblivious to any notion that there is anything unusual here or that the world could be any different. That is a vital part of the 'story' here.

Necromancer is undoubtedly a piece that you may find you have a closer connection with if you have lived in the place and times that inspired it. Even if you have not experienced the Northern Ireland Troubles however, the musical qualities of Ian Wilson’s compositions and the intense but sensitive playing of the musicians have a character and a flow that takes the listener on a journey that has deeper resonances. Necromancer reawakens the dead not only to have them speak of the past as a form of exorcism, but as the Epilogue reminds us, while also taking into account the high human cost in a world were there is still no shortage of war and conflict, peace is the only effective way of exorcising those demons.

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING

Necromancer (2025) for double bass, flute(s), clarinet(s), and percussion
Created with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland
Music composed by Ian Wilson and published by United Music Publishing Ltd. (UMP)
Performed by double bassist Dario Calderone, flautist Lina Andonovska, 
clarinettist Cathal Roche and percussionist Alex Petcu

Recorded at The Meadow, Delgany, County Wicklow on 11th October 2025
Recorded, edited and mixed by David Stalling
Produced by Ian Wilson and David Stalling
Images: Justine Cooper

Design: Doreen Kennedy

Digital release co-ordinated by Anthony Kelly and David Stalling

External links: Necromancer, Akihiko Okamura

Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos (Salzburg, 2026)

Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos

Salzburger Festspiele, 2026

Manfred Honeck, Ersan Mondtag, Kate Lindsey, Christina Nilsson, Eric Cutler, Ziyi Dai, Johannes Silberschneider, Christoph Pohl, Jonas Hacker, Blaž Stajnko, Fabian-Jakob Balkhausen, Leon Košavić, Michael Porter, Lukas Enoch Lemcke, Theodore Browne, Jasmin Delfs, Anja Mittermüller, Marlene Metzger, Fabio Dorizzi

3SAT broadcast - 15th August 2026

Almost 100 years to the day that this revised version of the Ariadne auf Naxos, was the first Richard Strauss opera performed at the Salzburg Festival, the festival itself co-founded by the composer who conducted the performance on 21st August 1926. If there is a case of history repeating itself at the festival after 100 years, you could also see some parallels between in the state of the world and the direction it is headed now, and the great changes happening in Vienna in the same period of the 20th century. That is certainly something that the current Salzburg production directed by Ersan Mondtag sets out to remind us ...in his own particular way, of course.

The thing you have to remember about Ariadne auf Naxos is that it is a comic opera (partly) and a satire on the arts and commerce (partly), on the preciousness of the artistic genius and the challenges they face in bringing their creation into the world, but it's also about the value of art and culture, how it reaches out and touches people. It's also much more than that thanks to the genius of Hofmannsthal and Strauss (and considerable rethinking about the work along the way after its initial first version failure as an accompaniment to Molière's comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme), so it shouldn't come as any surprise when a contemporary director attempts to put their own spin on the uneasy relationship between art and commerce, particularly when it is being performed in Salzburg for a predominantly wealthy audience.

I'm not sure any of them could afford to build a mansion on Mars, but there might be a few who already have their names down for the first commercial flights to the planet when SpaceX have those operational in a few years' time. Elon Musk, the world's first trillionaire, could certainly afford it and you would have to think he is just the kind of person lampooned in the prologue of the opera as 'The Richest Man in Vienna' (it couldn’t be anyone else) - the kind of person with enough money to sway and distort cultural work to suit his own agenda or dinner party. But the work is also an observation on how the artist can thrive when confronted with adversity (something the creators here knew all about in the genesis of this opera), how they even need challenges to prevent art from navel gazing pretension. It must simply find a way to communicate and touch an audience.

Ersan Mondtag is not known for satire or political commentary in his stage productions, instead just making them as colourful and surreally grotesque as possible. It's his vision of opera and it has to be said that it always looks stunning. As a one-act opera the set design succeeds in both parts of the opera, the Prologue well-handled with few of the director's usual eccentricities, but it has Kate Lindsay at the centre as the Composer and she is not going to be overshadowed. The combines opera seria/opera buffa is where all the stops are pulled out, a visual fantasy feast with an elaborate set, models of monstrous beasts, Eco floating up into the heavens and all the usual characters in body suits and extravagant costumes, all in an explosion of colour and whirling dancers.

The dancers are used mainly to visually represent Ariadne's desolation, in the process bringing rather more movement to this part of the opera than you would traditionally see and avoiding (although for the sake of satire, I'm not sure it should be avoided) any static operatic delivery. Indeed rather than contrast the two very different opera styles, Mondtag shows their unity as art and their relationship to the artist, Zerbinetta singing her advice on affairs of the heart to the lonely Composer rather than Ariadne (taking advantage of the fact that the Composer is a trouser role). It's a celebration of art as life, not pure and noble but one that comes from living, loving and feeling pain, needing the experience of genuine human feelings in order to be a greater artist. Aridane's redemption would not otherwise be as moving as it is in this opera.

Elina Garanča was meant to play the role of Ariadne but withdrew as she didn't feel prepared for the role. Christina Nilsson stepping in does wonderfully, but perhaps due to the directorial choices comes over a little on the cool side. Ziyi Dai is a warm-hearted and mature Zerbinetta, superb in the role (I believe Mondtag wished to turn things around and bring out the serious side of Zerbinetta and the comic side of Ariadne, although I don't think this comes across entirely). Eric Cutler sounded a little stretched in places but was suitably human and heroic as Bacchus. And how good is Kate Lindsey? The role of the composer is one she has sung before of course, most notably in the fine Glyndebourne production, but she just seems to find greater depth and power in her vocal expressiveness every time I hear her (most recently in Maria Stuarda at Salzburg last year). There may have been a little over-acting.

Some (many?) may think setting Ariadne auf Naxos on Mars is taking it a little too far (literally), but it's unimportant really and no more fantastical than Naxos being an enchanted island of mythology. No different either from Glyndebourne setting the opera in Glyndebourne, or Claus Guth setting it in the Kronenhalle restaurant in Zurich. It's a satirical work that can often be site specific in order to speak directly to the local audience. What matters is whether the opera makes its points and whether it succeeds in touching on the beauty of the human sentiments at the heart of it as well as entertaining, both playing out simultaneously. It's about finding what is needed in the remains of the present to look to and believe in a future. Will art save us? Perhaps not, but there is some comfort to be found that all the troubles and suffering ("Lass meine Schmerzen nicht verloren sein") resulted in the creation of this beautiful unique creation.

Perhaps not totally unique, as Strauss was drawing heavily from Mozart for his latest creations, and we already had Donizetti's brilliant satire of the theatre and opera seria in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali. All showing that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Undoubtedly they will remain the same in Elon's mansion on Mars in our new era of decadence to rival the decadence at the turn of 20th century Vienna and Mondtag, it has to be said, is good at doing decadence in his productions. Even on Mars however, Strauss and Hofmannsthal's work endures as "die heilige unter den Künsten", Manfred Honeck conducting the Vienna Philharmonic with delicacy right through to that searingly beautiful ending; the wealthy patrons of the festival got the spectacle for their money, and those who loathe modern productions got plenty to moan about. Something for everyone then, even if overall I personally found life on Mars a little on the cold side.

External links: Salzburg Festspiele

Bizet - Carmen (Salzburg, 2026)

Georges Bizet - Carmen

Salzburger Festspiele, 2026

Teodor Currentzis, Gabriela Carrizo, Asmik Grigorian, Jonathan Tetelman, Kristina Mkhitaryan, Davide Luciano, Iveta Simonyan, Anita Monserrat, Matthias Winckhler, Liviu Holender, Michael Arivony, Mingjie Lei

ARTE Concert - 8th August 2026 

If Carmen can't speak of the world around you today, what is the point of it? That must be the challenge for any director, opera house or festival choosing to present it on the modern stage. Much as some might like to live in the past, there is no room surely for the glamorising of violence and bloodshed, for the murder of gypsy girls, for valiant toreadors or any of the stock cliches that present the work as nothing more than an operatic entertainment. Carmen can be and should be more than this. Any opera worth its salt should be able to continue to resonate and tell us something about love, life, death and humanity. Salzburg, it has to be said, go out on a limb by handing it over to first time opera director and dance choreographer Gabriela Carrizo (Peeping Tom), but there is no question that it results in a viscerally striking and visually arresting account with not even the suggestion of any old-fashioned operatic mannerisms. There is still life, love and humanity in Carmen, and plenty of death too of course.

While the familiar strains of the overture and first scene of this production of Carmen are playing however, instead of humming along and tapping your foot, you're more likely to be focussed on identifying where this adaptation of the opera is taking place. The uniforms of the officers are fairly generic, the landscape is one of smooth rises of angular grey stone, the setting dark, very dark. We are far from the colour and sun of Andalucía. One thing that is clear is that it's a brutal world, for women particularly, so we are at least on familiar ground there. The first scene shows two men dumping a body over the edge of the hill, the next, beating up a vagabond thief in their midst. One of the guards teaches a young boy to use his gun and have some fun shooting his school friends.

The other thing you might note as characteristic of the setting is that they no longer appear to have soap or detergents. Everyone is covered in grime and dust, the uniforms filthy, the children are all grubby and unwashed. Sadly, it looks like they might have recently been putting out wildfires that have devastated the Andalusian landscape in these months; that sunset glow when the workers are leaving the factory might also be the approach of the continuing fires. I'm not sure Carmen is the place for eco awareness and climate change warnings - and that doesn't turn out to be the theme of this production - but at least it isn't mired in the usual cliches. Well, not the usual colourful seductive Carmen scene-setting ones anyway, which I suppose is what is really being avoided here.

Not that 'post-apocalypse' is any more original at the moment, but the aim of this one doesn't appear to be concerned with alerting us to climate change devastation, more 'post morality' maybe, which is certainly another worrying direction humanity seems to be heading in. The people here seem to be living on the edge of a volcano or one where another outbreak of smouldering ash could reignite at any moment. You could certainly apply that description to Bizet's music anyway, and Teodor Currentzis doesn't hold back from the full-on dynamic of the score here at Salzburg, stripping it of any romanticised account of gypsy melodies. This Carmen is loud, fast, aggressive and muscularly masculine, any notion of tenderness is quickly quashed. An almost frenzied seguidilla had some of the well-heeled Salzburg audience audibly booing. I'm guessing this isn't a world they recognise, or are well protected from it. Get over yourselves.

(An aside. Seriously, anyone who boos during an opera performance should be ejected from the theatre for loud disruptive behaviour and spoiling the enjoyment for others more appreciative of the efforts of the creative team. There is no excuse for it in an age where you can spill out your rage on social media now anyway. You wouldn't get away with this at any other theatrical performance or artistic presentation. Would they stand in front of a painting in an art gallery and boo an artist they didn't like? Open a book and boo out loud if wasn't to their liking? It's the height of boorish behaviour and completely unproductive. What specifically did you not like? (Boo!). Did you not like the singing (Boo!). Was there something about the production you found offensive or just not to your particular taste? (Boo!). Did you feel that the orchestration or the stage directions did not confirm sufficiently to the creators' intentions and are you protesting on their behalf? (Boo!). Hmmm. Since we don't seem to be able to clarify your objections from you monosyllabic grunting perhaps we can assume that the problem here is that you feel your fragile masculinity feels threatened by the representation of a strong woman on the stage).

We don't expect it from Carmen, but even Micaëla’s message from Don José’s sweet mother appears to be a mere fantasy or dream, presaged by harsh electronic drone sounds inserted between the scenes. Extemporised scenes and electronic sounds are not the only changes or additions; there are harsh ringing alarm bell sounds, castanets but even flamenco singing interludes that don't conform to the traditional image we have of Carmen. Every effort in fact is made to move away from the idealised romanticised depiction presented in Bizet's opera and in the music. I'm not sure that it even wants to solely focus on the now commonplace reinterpretation of Carmen as a condemnation of violence against women and femicide: or at least a balance is struck between that and Don José yielding to temptation, to his own violent nature in conflict with the dangerous attraction of the wild side of Carmen where he will throw away his dwindling sense of morality and join in the bacchanal at the end of the world, a world of toxic 'anti-woke' masculinity. And custard pie throwing. A cue for more booing there surely?

Inevitably, the third and fourth acts move even further in a dark direction, as Carmen’s ultimate fate - if it wasn’t already preordained - is announced here not in the cards or the hand of fate but by far more ominous imagery and movement. And sounds, echoed voices, rumbles, drones. It's not a gypsy camp that Micaëla wanders onto, but something truly out of a nightmare; a dark, deepest dark and truly savage place. The contrast of the defenceless young woman and a naked mother just heightens the nature of the masculine world that women venture into: a place where innocence dies. This is something that if you are present in the theatre you must surely feel viscerally, as Currentzis and Kristina Mkhitaryan bring out the gentleness in her soul in contrast to the ugliness of the world around them.

There is definitely something to be said for fresh interpretations, more so here for Asmik Grigorian singing the role of Carmen as a full rich soprano. While you can argue over whether Currentzis going overboard on aggressiveness and volume is suitable or not, Carmen benefits from the intensity of the human expression in the music and the voice. There is a mighty performance here from Jonathan Tetelman as Don José, and Grigorian an outstanding Carmen, both fully invested in their characters, the depth of feeling obvious, as it should be in this most violently passionate of love affairs. Humanising it all is essential, and the production tries to support this, eliminating the glamour, seeking to create or establish an atmosphere more grounded in realism through sound, and the dislocated movements of the Peeping Tom dancers, all of which contribute to heightening this.

By the end I genuinely wondered whether I had missed some of the classic set pieces of the opera and whether new scenes and music weren't added, so radical a shift from the traditional Carmen did this new version feel, but no, I don't think so. Yes, there are some interpolations and reinterpretations, but it is wholly Carmen, re-envisioned for the regression and degeneration we see around us in some many aspects of society today. I don't think the opera was ever meant to carry this kind of extra weight, but we are in different times, the world has changed, and how we view it has changed. In that light, you have to consider that Carmen, the strong independent woman, has played some part in the journey to the small gains that have been made for women today, while this production of the opera shows us the danger of what can happen when those hard won freedoms are allowed to be gradually eroded.

External links: ARTE Concert, Salzburger Festspiele

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Festival d'Aix-en Prevence, 2026

Leonardo García Alarcón, Clément Cogitore, Ying Fang, Mauro Peter, Sabine Devieilhe, Sean Michael Plumb, Brindley Sherratt, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Alix Le Saux, Ashley Dixon, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Emma Fekete, Rodolphe Briand, Damien Pass, Jonghyun Park, Yvon Moltzen, Jakob Geppert, Cléo Lou Straka, Zoé Höche

ARTE Concert - 21st July 2026

It's amazing - I think so anyway - how a great work of operatic art can be continually refreshed and revitalised hundreds of years after its creation, always having something new to tell us about our own times. That's the measure of great art of course and a great artform. Indeed there are few works in opera as enduring, as complete and unchallengingly brilliant as Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (although I can think of several other Mozart operas alone that fit that description). It's amazing how this can be achieved also with a minimal lightness of musical and directorial touch and without compromising the original mood and intent of the work. With a background in filmmaking, French director Clément Cogitore, sets out his stall for this production at the 2026 Aix-en-Provence Festival with simple grainy old movie footage, placing you in the world this particular Zauberflöte is going to inhabit, work its magic and share all its warmth, wisdom and love for humanity.

It's a historical period, but the implications and the human resonance of the WWII period chosen are not difficult to see applying to the contemporary world situation around us today. The opening footage is of people emerging out of the ruins of Berlin in the aftermath of the Second World War, the characters on the stage extending this out into the theatre and seeming to bring the audience into it, stepping back into time and really feeling like you are there in the midst of it. The focus is on clearing up and rebuilding, particularly from the perspective of the need to provide instruction and guidance to the children who have been left with a destroyed present and an unpromising future.

It's a thoughtful response to Mozart's opera on the part of the director, who by placing it in this setting captures the character emerging from an age of darkness much more effectively than the more typical magical fantasy setting ever manages to achieve. More than just delving deeper, Cogitore also attempts to widen the journey that Tamino and Pamina take to dig their way out of this bleak world by using children to stand in for the tenor and soprano singers as they pass through childhood and adolescence before the singers take over as young adults. There's a minor concern that the production might lose some of the 'magic' of The Magic Flute - and it has to be said that there is certainly less comedy playing in this version - but Die Zauberflöte is an opera of many dimensions, moods and colours and it can be instructive to focus on other aspects.

Cogitore's focus is indeed on the 'instructive' side of the opera. In Act I, Tamino is a child, struggling to survive amid the rubble and ruins; as is Papageno, doing what he can to get by with the meagre opportunities for finding food. The three ladies are dressed like those seen in the historical footage clearing bricks from the ruins, doing what they can to restore order and purpose, educating the children, providing food and providing protection from Tamino's terrifying dreams of snakes, setting the young boy a challenge to bring hope and a sense of purpose. The spoken dialogue is slightly adapted to the post-war situation in this way without changing the tone and intent of the original. It also brings a human element to the work. Not mythical figures, but people who have suffered real hardships and fears.

Further footage underlines the sense of purpose, the three boys a supportive gang of Tom Sawyers and Huckleberry Finns. Pamina meanwhile is in great danger on the streets of New York, encountering or trying to keep out of the clutches of Monostatos as a New York policeman or security guard. Her mother, the Queen of the Night is indeed just a mother who has lost her daughter to the promise of the bright lights of the city, with all the concerns that brings. And of course, with Tamino and Pamina starting out in this way as young children, it brings greater emphasis on the dangers they face as they make a necessary journey to rebuild a new world shaped by a fresh new outlook, not to be subject to the old ways of ancient orders and ancient enmities. Which in this case means a path that is not pre-determined by either the Queen of the Night or Sarastro.

There is a natural shift that takes place in Act II and the director gives the opening dialogue before 'O Isis und Osiris' time to make its point and establish where we are in the next stage in Tamino and Pamina's journey, the young children now adolescents. Reflecting the dress of Monostatos as a New York officer of the peace - a corrupt one - in Act I, we now find ourselves in what looks like a booming post-war Golden Age of Capitalism of the 1940s into the 1950s. Sarastro is the blind president of a large company, taking questions from his 'shareholders' on the suitability of the new junior executive protégé he has in mind to presumably take over the running of the company. Or something along those lines. The 'company' seems to be involved in scientific research of a dubious nature and the outcome of the 'recruitment process' is a little more ambiguous than usual at the conclusion.

The production certainly puts a different complexion on the opera's central conflict of enlightenment versus obscurantism, reason versus superstition, peace over aggression, but ends up coming to the same conclusion that a new generation can (or needs to) learn from the conflicts and failings of the previous generation and lead humanity "in joy and peace towards a better world". It's an optimistic view inspired by the Age of Enlightenment that hasn't quite come to fruition: if we have undoubtedly made some progress there have been huge steps backward as well. The projections of the brave new world of the post-war boom USA does reflect the ambiguity of this and make its failings recognisable, although perhaps wisely the production team avoid the rather negative portrayal of the dark skinned Monostatos as a reflection of race issues in the USA.

Under the musical direction of Leonardo García Alarcón - whose background is more in early baroque opera - the overture takes off at full tilt, but thereafter is filled with all the warmth, optimism, character and beauty of the music. I mean, The Magic Flute really is a thing of almost transcendent beauty and if you can get a stage production to reflect that and maybe even find new aspects to highlight, so much the better, but it's no doubt difficult to reconcile all the contrasts and tones. There is less of a comic element here certainly, fewer of Papageno's antics; that character is still there but Cogitore chooses to focus on other human characteristics that are deemed more important to highlight at the present time. What is important is that nothing in the work is taken for granted, as routine or going through motions, but rather honing in on the emotional undercurrents and reflecting on what charges and transforms them into actions.

Sadly, Tamino's nature as a model to aspire to still remains elusive. Cogitore in an interview for the Aix production admits as much and confirms that is the main reason for the choice of showing him starting out as a child and learning from the ways of the world. Mauro Peter's task is complicated somewhat then by having to let young actors act out two-thirds of the opera, and while sounding fine, doesn't succeed in imbuing Tamino with any more personality. The same challenge faced Ying Fang, who was nonetheless a superb Pamina, striving to make a connection with her 'avatar'. Her 'Ach, ich fühl's' demonstrated the richness of her voice and the emotional charge behind it. Papageno was intentionally underplayed by Sean Michael Plumb, but sung well. If that sound like the singing was lacking, it's not the case. Often, not always but often, Tamino and Pamina are rather lacking in character and tend to be overshadowed by the other larger than life figures. Not so here, where I feel the balance better distributed.

By the same token, despite their characters' blaze and bluster neither Königen der Nacht nor Sarastro dominated. Sabine Devieilhe doesn't have the heft of a typical Queen of the Night and is lighter of voice but more than capable for the challenges of the role and the all-important interpretation of character. Sarastro's booming character likewise was suitably adjusted by Brindley Sherratt and the director, depicted as blind (to the future?) rather than authoritarian. I'm not sure it quite reconciles or finds a path between the darkness and the light - Robert Carsen did that best for my money in Paris in 2014 - but then The Magic Flute should always be a reflection of where we lie on that path today and the period chosen here does force us to view the world now on the edge of great change (if not destruction) and consider who we chose to lead us through it.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, La Scène Numérique du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Richard Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten

Festival d'Aix-en Provence, 2026

Klaus Mäkelä, Barrie Kosky, Michael Spyres, Vida Miknevičiūtė, Nina Stemme, Brian Mulligan, Ambur Braid, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Tomasz Kumięga, Daniel Miroslaw, Robert Lewis, Ella Taylor, Héloïse Mas, Laurence Pouderoux, Eugénie Lefebvre, Laura Jarrell

ARTE Concert - 9th July 2026

Die Frau ohne Schatten is one of the most darkly enigmatic of all opera works, shrouded in ominous metaphors with uncommon mythical imagery and obscure meaning. Composed between 1914 and 1917, it's above all a product of its time, Richard Strauss and his librettist, the poet Hugo von Hofmannstahl, grappling with the industrialisation of war and a time of social upheaval; dealing with a modern era of new philosophical thinking and artistic expression in their Viennese society and trying to find a new way of expressing all that in theatrical and musical terms. 

Restaging the opera and working out how much to adhere to its original stage directions in order to retain the underlying purpose of the work is up for grabs and evidently it inspires many impressive interpretations and re-imaginings. Above all of course the work has a tremendous inner power of its own that never fails to put across. Giving the work to a director like Barrie Kosky to direct at the Aix-en-Provence Festival is therefore an intriguing proposition.

Behind all the fairy tale imagery and obscure symbolism there is at least one clear theme that runs through the work. The Woman without a Shadow is clearly stated as a metaphor for the infertility of the Empress, who since she is unable to conceive a child, her husband the Emperor will turn into stone. Christof Loy’s astonishing "literal" 2011 Salzburg Festival reproduction of the 1955 Vienna recording of this opera by Karl Böhm managed managed to tease out a deeply moving reflection on all the unborn children of those who died in the war. Or as the Aix programme notes succinctly describe the theme of the opera in a wider context, it's a question of "what is the essence of humanity and why should it be perpetuated?"

It's also notable of course that there is a clear distinction drawn between the Emperor of a mythical realm's desire for a successor and the human world of Barak the Dyer and his wife's choice to bring children into the world under rather more difficult conditions. The work captures the human tenderness in the pain of living for both these couples and Strauss’s music gets to the heart of it with beautiful lyricism and with the emotional and psychological depth that Hofmannstahl pours imaginatively into the fable. The other interpretation - or an additional one on top of that one - is that the shadow represents the conscience and the danger of those who act and rule without the basic human quality of having a conscience. But essentially whichever way you look at it, it's about defining humanity and its potential for turning towards destruction and self-destruction and the consequences of which are made quite clear at the end of the second Act.

The opening of the third Act III consequently hits hard, all the more so in this production due to the exceptional singing of Brian Mulligan as Barak and Ambur Braid as his wife. Kosky however gives them the ideal platform: a completely white box, the lighting such indeed that there is almost no trace of any shadows (it's the first time I've ever seen Die Frau ohne Schatten where the stage lighting does actually make the shadows disappear); just the hint of reflection but no shadow. Husband and wife wander in space, blind to each other, the effect almost overwhelming as the intent of this elaborately arranged and conceived work it is indeed supposed to be. The subsequent scene between the Empress and the Nurse in the subsequent scene in the box no less effective, again the singing expressing everything, Vida Miknevičiūtė as the Empress in particular ability stunning in her delivery, the killing of her nurse played by Nina Stemme coming as quite a shock on top of that. In a work filled with symbolism like this, the director is free to let their own imagination run riot to serve the imagery and intent and Kosky obliges right up to a suitably enigmatic ending.

The work contains all the ingredients to impress and touch deeply. There is a contrast and dynamic between the two worlds that is brought out as much by the singing as the score and libretto, making it feel vital, real and alive. As noted above, both Vida Miknevičiūtė and Canadian soprano Ambur Braid are both superb here. Typically for Strauss the vocal challenges are considerable for the female roles, but the emotional journey is also critical and both handle it impressively. Brian Mulligan as Barak is also outstanding, looking and sounding like he is having a deep crisis and emotional breakdown at times, but his singing is assured and controlled. Once an Empress herself, Nina Stemme's experience with this opera brings additional depth to the role of the Nurse and she still sings and performs to a very high standard. There really is not other standard in this opera that will do in this opera for any of the main roles. Michael Spyres has recently been taking on heavier roles like this and his voice, a little deeper now, is ideal and as golden as ever, but doesn't seem to establish a sense of character or even real menace as the Emperor.

With voices of that quality to work with, Barrie Kosky likewise tones down his usual excesses when presented with an opera of rich excess. Can you do a minimalist Die Frau ohne Schatten? Would you even want to? Would you ever expect Barrie Kosky to deliver a minimalist production? And yet, the director finds the right balance here, seeking to delve deeper into the meaning and the human above the spectacle and glamour, allowing flashes of wonder at the dream of other possibilities in a world yet to be born, but making sure that the reality always intrudes. The music does exactly the same. There is a distinction between the grubby ramshackle tower of the Dyer and the sterile, cold and lifeless world of the Emperor. Sterile and lifeless provide the appropriate imagery that works much better here rather than place of magical fantasy and wonder. The fantastical touches when they are used - a giant rocking chair with blades for rockers, the headless messengers of Keikobad, and a glittering golden dancer - are original and strikingly effective.

While individual scenes are impressive, well imagined, visually effective and sung and acted as well as they can be, the challenges of bringing it all into a coherent drama remain. Does Die Frau ohne Schatten really have any deeper meaning, or is it enough to be a broad meditation on birth and existence? There are many other little observations and truths broached here, but it's difficult to see them adding up to something greater. Perhaps it's the fact that it can't be easily pinned down that makes it a great work, one that allows new teams to bring a new vision and new ideas. What is clear is that this production is a fabulous account of an endlessly fascinating opera, and you can't complain about that. With Klaus Mäkelä taking on a considerable challenge for his first new opera production for Aix-en-Provence, the score is explored across its whole range of expression and never less than overwhelming on a deep emotional level. Rather than seek to illuminate or explain its mysteries, Kosky and Mäkelä suggest that Die Frau ohne Schatten is perhaps simpler in its meaning and message than the elaborate scenario suggests.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, La Scène Numérique du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Wagner - Rienzi (Bayreuth, 2026)

Richard Wagner - Rienzi (Bayreuth, 2026)

Bayreuther Festspiele, 2026

Nathalie Stutzmann, Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka, Andreas Schager, Gabriela Scherer, Andreas Bauer Kanabas, Jennifer Holloway, Michael Nagy, Vitalij Kowaljow, Matthias Stier, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Victoria Randem

BR-Klassik Livestream - 26th July 2026

First performed in 1842, Wagner's first serious opera Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen had never been performed before at the composer's theatre at Bayreuth. A five-act epic in the grand opera tradition, it was soon disavowed by the composer and never accepted as part of the Bayreuth canon. It has been performed infrequently elsewhere, but it is a challenge, the opera carrying a lot of historical baggage and notoriety as an opera that celebrates fascism and its association with the Third Reich. The idea that an opera can be fascist is clearly nonsense of course - it's all about how you choose to represent the rise and fall of a dictator on the stage. Some might choose to confront this legacy but another approach - surely equally as valid if it has any meaning or relevance at all (the jury may still be out on that one) - is to see the opera not defined by history, but what it means today.

The Bayreuth Festival has not been afraid to confront Wagner's history and some of the controversial elements in his works, but it has tended to shy away from making any overly political statements in recent years. Stefan Herheim's Parsifal at Bayreuth however viewed the composer's last great work in the context of German history, while the most recent challenge to the composer's legacy was Barry Kosky putting Wagner's antisemitism on trial in the 2017 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Having never been performed before at Bayreuth however, the pressure on the directors to find a way of presenting this troublesome work are undoubtedly considerable, but just as important is validating the staging of the Rienzi at Bayreuth in its 150th anniversary year is also to come up with a meaningful approach that will address the question of why now?

It's immediately apparent that if the directors Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka are going to address the legacy of Rienzi, it is going to be through the lens of the present rather than through its Nazi associations or indeed its 14th century historical drama in Rome. The famous overture - one of the enduring qualities of the work - sets a scene across three rooms of a contemporary apartment block are occupied by Cola Rienzi, his sister Irene and a young sick child who we discover is Rienzi's brother Giovanni. 'Party Chairman' Rienzi is preparing a speech venerating German Art while Irene is looking after the sick child. The child dies and as the building rises out of the stage, the neighbouring apartments are seen sharing text messages suggesting an incestuous relationship between Rienzi and his sister, and that the child may have been born out of that relationship.

Act I's clashes between the Colonna and Orsini families here take the form of a heated election debate, with graphics showing election polls and projections, TV cameras broadcasting the election addresses and debates. Talk around Rienzi isn't the only scandal doing the rounds, as Stefano Colonna, an important industrialist, has recently been acquitted of the hit-and-run accident that has led to the death of Giovanni. Rienzi steps in to bring a measured response that strikes a chord with the public and the media, pledging loyalty to Irene and Adriano Colonna, the son of Stefano to serve the people.

Despite the overheated nature of the first Act - somewhat inevitable considering Wagner's dramatic score - it is relatively based in a familiar contemporary reality that soon breaks down, or at least shows a deeper more troubling undercurrent. Having been acclaimed Tribune of Rome, the dull grey and white of Act I is momentarily replaced with a new optimism and pride in the new Rome under the command of Rienzi. But as the sun breaks through the storm clouds in this production's Act II, in Rienzi's mind his dead brother appears as one of the divine Messengers of Peace descending staircase from heaven. Scenes for Rienzi’s reception or "coronation" take place in a Roman senate arrangement where after the failed Caesar-like assassination attempt and coup by Colonna, Rienzi takes on a Christ complex.

Despite the modern trappings - mobile phones held aloft at every move - the Bayreuth production nonetheless adheres closely to the dramatic action as it plays out in the libretto without too many revisionist touches, but also without managing to say anything new about what follows. The contemporary setting at least has a ring of familiarity to it as, for all the ruler's fine words, the real test comes when the 'nobili' - or businesses and wealth holders - rise up against him. Needless to say, Rienzi fails here and it's the ordinary people who pay the price of the cost of war, resulting in the people turning against him. Even though 'modernised', Rienzi resists modernisation, Act III remains every bit as over the top as the most extravagant of grand opera, the production failing to rein its excesses in at all.

Whether a director should even attempt to hold back on Rienzi or not is of course a matter of choice. Wagner scored the work to be a grand, epic statement, but it does risk losing sight of any purpose it might have, getting carried away in its own operatic grandiosity, with caricatures of noble sentiments and foul plots, all arch declamations, formal processions, marching battle-hymns and fervent solemn choruses. It's similarly easy for the audience to just get caught up in the grand sweep of it all to the extent that they ignore the troubling undercurrents of fascism, but at this kind of drawn-out length (even in its reduced form of just under 4 hours), it's also rather wearying.

Although I have seen it a few times, I'm not as familiar with Rienzi as other Wagner operas, but it does seem as if there has been some reordering done to make it flow a little easier. Rienzi sings his Act V aria 'Allmächt'ger Vater' before Act IV's discussion of excommunication (a fair portion of which is conducted through text messages in English), but otherwise under conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, it's the full-on Rienzi experience. Some other unique directorial touches are applied to Act V where Rienzi and Irene seem to consummate their relationship in some kind of death pact while Adriano looks on in shock. The only light touch - or heavy-handed touch maybe - is the use of the Act II ballet music to run through highly compressed scenes from all Wagner's subsequent mature operas, performed in am dram costumes, complete with intervals where the well-heeled audience queue for drinks and toilets.

To be honest, the ballet-theatre scene is indicative of the style of the acting and the direction throughout. There is a token attempt to explore the psychology or psychopathy of a dictator in a proposed invented incestuous relationship with sister and death of his brother (or 'brother’), which doesn't offer a great deal - although it is something of a Wagnerian trait. There is also at least some effort to engage with contemporary political events in the production - perhaps more so than any production at Bayreuth since Frank Castorf's Ring - setting the work in the context of a modern electoral campaign where the far-right are gaining popular votes. The epic grand conclusion that Wagner scores could only be justified when depicted as the eventual complete meltdown of the capitalist system, but it all just feels empty and meaningless after four hours at full tilt orchestration and booming choruses, and the work proves resistant to any attempt to inject an air of cautionary realism into it.

Vocally, aside from the chorus who have an important part to play in this work, much rests inevitably on Andreas Schager's performance as Rienzi and, as is often the case, it's a little over the top (as is the chorus, but in a good way). Certainly the role is written for grand declamation, but Schager doesn't seem to be able to bring it down to any level other than full-on forte that starts loud and gets increasingly strained over the four hours of the opera. The man is going to do himself an injury at this rate. Only when taking the 'Allmächt'ger Vater' aria - presumably placed in Act IV for breathing space - does he manage to show some restraint; in the singing at least; the 'acting' is reduced to lots of wild expressions and writhing around. Sure, the relentless pitch of the opera perhaps demands it, but Schager's performance doesn't make it any easier to relate to it. I liked Gabriela Scherer's performance as Irene, even though her role in the opera remains unfathomable in the psychodrama that is developed here with Rienzi and Adriano. Jennifer Holloway's Adriano is a heroic role that proves powerless to change the course of events; the soprano makes similarly a valiant effort all the way through, but is often overwhelmed by the bombast.

The current rise of the far-right in Germany is all the justification necessary to bring Rienzi to the stage at Bayreuth - let's just hope that the AfD don't adopt the overture for its rallies or history might repeat itself - but if that is indeed the target, it fails to make its mark and just confirms that Rienzi does not need to remain a regular fixture at Bayreuth. Despite the derivativeness of its sources though, it is an accomplished work, worth a look every now and again to admire not so much its sheer folly and ambition, but to see it as a necessary step towards the greatness that would follow from Richard Wagner. It's almost as if all the bad habits of operatic grand opera had to be expelled from the system in order to find his own true voice. This Rienzi is worth seeing, even if it's just to get over the curiosity about whether it really has any merit, and then you can put any such ideas about that aside for another while.

BR-Klassik Livestream, Bayreuther Festspiele