Lessons in Love and Violence
George Benjamin's latest opera is like a dark crystal that harbours many colours. It was composed with the intended singers in mind and it shows. Barbara Hannigan excels, she brings depth to her character, and always has an ear for the belcanto aspect, even in the most challenging of vocal lines.>>
Berlin/Blog: Faust & the claws of time
A trip to Berlin. To the heart of the German (and European) canon with Gounod's Faust at Deutsche Oper Berlin >>
Russian roulette with Prokofiev
Opera Vlaanderen brings The Gambler of Sergej Prokofiev. Director Karin Henkel turns that opera (based on Dostoyevsky's novel) into an ingenious piece of music theater.
BACH/BLOG
After Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan und Isolde, De Nederlandse Reisopera takes up Wagner again with the story of a man doomed to sail the world seas forever.. Read the review that includes the epiloque "Wagner & Vampires" >>
Peter Sellars and Teodor Currentzis join forces to remake Mozart's last opera in their own image. The recitatives are cut and the score is adapted with other pieces from Mozart's oeuvre. Currentzis: "Everything we add to the music here, we do with the greatest respect and with the greatest possible love towards the composer". Read the review here >>
In 2014, The Dutch National Opera was the first to fully stage Schönberg's Late-Romantic mega cantata. This season that production has its second coming. Read the review here >>
MORE REVIEWS >>Parsifal in Flanders: Reign in Blood
Tatjana Gürbaca - who had already taken care of Der Fliegende Holländer in Antwerp, Lohengrin in Essen and an abridged (and rebuilt) Ring des Nibelingen in Vienna (Die Ring-Trilogie!) - returns to Opera Vlaanderen with her Parsifal production from 2013 (Wagner's bicentennial). Both praised and controversial - it all sounds very much as a recommendation. Read the review here >>
Tristan & Isolde and the impossible embracePierre Audi's production of Tristan und Isolde is out of this world.
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ABOUTThis website wants to be a musical journey from the blues-based hardrock I grew up with to the 19th century music dramas of Richard Wagner I became so enarmored with later in my life.
The music of Wagner feels, more than the music of any other (classical) composer I know, like a natural extension of the hardrock and heavy metal I grew up with. His music can be a place for the metal aficionado who might have reached a point of arrival in his or her listening experience and is receptive for something that goes beyond the sound of double bass drums and howling guitarsolos. Something else, but something that is equally, if not more, satisfying to ears and soul. For me Richard Wagner was the door to new worlds of sound. A guide on a journey through a musical landscape that is still ongoing. Join in and enjoy the ride ... 
Recensies en blogs in het Nederlands Met De Vliegende Hollander, La Clemenza di Tito, Gurre-Lieder, Parsifal, Tristan & Isolde, en Daniele Gatti's avonturen in Bruckners 9e symfonie. Verder o.a.: Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Aleksandr Scriabin, Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink en Henry Rollins. |
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