Opera Chic

Opera for the (Fashion) People: Die Entführung in a Hangar, Live from Salzburg

Europe's fetish for staging traditional, staid opera in modern, Metropolis hubs -- like offstage productions of Bohème in Hochhaus Bern and Traviata in Hauptbahnhof Zürich -- makes for alluring metaphor: both opera and transportation stations are gateways to aspirational travel, whether it be through the librettist's transcendent quill or a commuter's escapist fantasies. We've indulged in both.

Tonight, opera goes offsite again for the Salzburger Festspiele's staging of Mozart's Die Entführung under twelve-hundred tons of steel and 380 tons of curved glass at Salzburg Airport's Hangar 7. The backdrop will span ten public spaces, including the hangar's collection of historic airplanes (like a WWII-era P-38 Lightning) collected by historic aircraft enthusiasts The Flying Bulls.

Director Adrian Marthaler, who previously collaborated with the Hauptbahnhof Zürich Traviata, updates 18th century Turkey and the sultan's harem to a modern-day fashion house complete with catwalks, seamstress workshops and photoshoot sets inhabited by photographers, models and stylists. Pasha Selim (orated by Tobias Moretti) is a fashion house designer, Blonde (Rebecca Nelsen) is a makeup artist/stylist and 'Stanze (Desirée Rancatore) is a bourgeois girl seduced by the glitter of the jet-set lifestyle. 

Dressed by Viennese fashion designer Lena Hoschek's costumes and tracked by 16 cameras and 200 technical staff, Die Entführung will be filmed live and streamed at 20.15 GMT+1.

A portentous theme in the run-up to the September fashion shows, fashion pirates will give our predictable Milan Fashion Week stress nightmares a whole new level of terror!

On Branagh's Flute II

Kenneth Branagh had us at Henry V before he even whipped out his Magic Flute seventeen years later.

Shot in 2006, coinciding with Mozart's 250th b'day bash, Branagh's candy-slicked, technicolor WWI rewrite (Papageno is sung by Benjamin Jay Davis as a pigeon-hustler who trench-trawls on mustard gas patrol) slowly rolled out across peculiar markets in big continents, North America excluded, but here we are seven years later for its USA premiere, which unfolds across 150 theaters powered by Emerging Pictures on Sunday (with an encore on June 11).

Okay, the special effects could benefit from a shot of botox and Stephen Fry Schikanedered the libretto, but the chemistry between wholesome Davis and charismatic Joseph Kaiser as Tamino make us pine for a buddy film sequel -- The Magic Oboe: What Do You Mean You Don't Know How To Play An Oboe? Dude That Bear's Totally Going To Eat You Alive.

Azzedine Alaïa and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Mozart's Nozze

Ahhhhhh-Alaïa. On the runway, off the runway, how we covet the Paris-based, Tunisian-born fashion designer's laser cut leathers and ballerina dresses that hug us in all the right places.

This May, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents the 70(ish) year old designer's costumes for Mozart's Le Nozze, sets by architect Jean Nouvel. Not since the Prada/Herzog and de Meuron/Muti Attila have we been so excited for an opera/fashion fusion. Gustavo Dudamel conducts, Christopher Maltman is the Count and Dorothea Röschmann the Countess.

Damiano Michieletto's Così fan tutte for Venice

Fiordiligi and Dorabella enter the lobby of a design hotel after a day of high-end shopping. Guglielmo and Ferrando are in jeans and leather jackets. So begins young Italian opera director Damiano Michieletto's vision for Mozart's Così fan tutte at Venice's Teatro la Fenice, which opened on February 16.

Set in a luxury design hotel modeled from the 70s, Corriere della Sera affectionaltly called it kitschy. We guess that Michieletto's noticed in the past couple years, Milan's elegant old guard --  like the Principe di Savoia and the Grand Hotel et de Milan -- has been crowded by the expanding empires of Italian designers who've opened design hotels: Armani, Bulgari & Moschino.

Corriere praised an "impeccable cast" for opening night: Antonello Manacorda on the podium, Maria Bengtsson as Fiordiligi, Josè Maria Lo Monaco as Dorabella, Markus Werba as Guglielmo, Marlin Miller as Ferrando, Caterina Di Tonno as Despina and Andrea Concetti as Don Alfonso.

UPDATE

Apparently this happens during the opera. Yes, that's what you think it is.

Mozart Gets an Italian Premiere

For the first time ever, the entire 826 known letters written by Clan Mozart (including those written by daddy Leopold and wife 'Stanze) have been translated and published into Italian language.

Bolzano notary Marco Murara edited, curated and translated the 3- volume book set, L'epistolario completo della famiglia Mozart (1755-1791), which runs 1958 pages and costs 89 euro. At Tomorrow night's launch party at Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Amadeus freaks are gonna party like it's 1799.

9/11/2011

Mozart + Insane Clown Posse + Jack White = ???

Jack White collaborates with Mozart and Insane Clown Posse.

Wolfie, apparently, was a juggalo.

More at Pitchfork.

Lisa Della Casa: "Ah, Chi Mi Dice Mai", Don Giovanni, Salzburger Festspiele 1954, Wiener Philharmoniker, Wilhelm Furtwängler cond.

Rai3 Shows Some Vick & Opera di Roma <3

Earlier this month we wrote about Graham Vick's new production of Die Entfuhrung for Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, and now Rai3's «Prima della Prima» will feature it tonight (at 1:40am) in a special segment on Mozart's harem-y tale.

Graham Vick's Die Entführung in Rome...

...opens on Tuesday in a new production by our favorite f**k-up-your-opera-house director, Graham Vick. Opera di Roma hasn't staged Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail in almost forty years and this era's singers will be Rodney Clarke as Selim, Maria Grazia Schiavo as Konstanze, Charles Castronovo as Belmonte and Gabriele Ferro on the podium.

Above, British bass-baritone Rodney Clarke is lounging in his pasha gear -- although below, he's more in his element, hanging out on his website. Oh I'm sorry? Were you looking for the opera singer Rodney Clarke? I'll bet you weren't expecting me!! Nooooooo you weren't.

Amadé and Stanzi: Bertolt Brecht & Paula Banholzer, 1919

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung has this awesome photo of Bert, a famous prankster, and his then-girlfriend photographed in 1919 dressed up in 18th century gear -- Mozart and Constanze for a brave new Century.

Strehler's "Nozze": Always A Treat

Above, a 2006 version of the magic 1973 production (in this case, from la Scala). This dude on Youtube has uploaded most of the Opera Bastille production that was elegantly brought back to life by Nicolas Joel (bravo!) after Gerard Mortier had destroyed the sets and tossed away the costumes.

Savage Garden: David Alden Will F@çk Your Giardiniera Up

Below, images from the dress rehearsal of Mozart's "La finta giardiniera" in Vienna -- the opera, conducted by Rene Jacobs and directed by David Alden (sets by Paul Steinberg)  will open at Theater an der Wien on November 12  

(ph. Reuters/Prammer)

Only in Berlin: Second & Third Base for Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito

We're just gonna let this one speak for itself! Titus im Bode-Museum Berlin's new production of Mozart's La Clemenza opens on October 29. More photos here, various cast here in Christoph Hagel's production.

el oh el!

Click for more photos of men and women doing things!

Mozart's Requiem Mass Gets a Makeover in Kevin Guilfoile's New Book

 

Imagine if Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor had been recreated exactly as Mozart had wished, with the help of a secret mathematical map. Kevin Guilfoile made it happen in his new book, The Thousand (the follow-up to Cast of Shadows) which has been excerpted by the New York Times. 

"Là ci darem la mano": Mario Petri, Graziella Sciutti; Nino Sanzogno, Cond. (Naples, 1958)

"Nozze di Figaro", Overture: Gildas Delaporte

Mozart @ The Super Bowl

(via)

January 27, All Day Every Day Until the End of Time

The Wieler-Morabito Nozze Strike Again: Mozart Will Sell You A Used Car

On January 15, the cool peeps @ Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam are bringing back the 2006 staging of Nozze di Figaro by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito that made us seriously lol if not definitely rofl -- it's Mozart in a car dealership (Jossi and Sergio, the Viktor & Rolf of opera directors, also staged Don Giovanni among the beds of a furniture store and Cosi Fan Tutte in a 1960s youth hostel).

The usual suspects totally hated the concept but Opera Chic thinks that, in general, a man with a great sense of humor such as Amadé would have laughed, too. Not to mention -- but this is probably true for every opera composer who ever lived, except for Wagner -- he would have simply been astonished, and pleasantly surprised, that his work is still staged everywhere, still so loved, so successful, and so relevant to our 21st Century lives.

Oh, and if you visit Amsterdam next month (insert weed jokes here) you can also catch on the Nederlandse Opera's stage that big tall order of sexy, Luca Pisaroni, reprising his role as Figaro.

Le Nozze di Figaro (in Arabic), Finale Act IV

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, "Contessa, Perdono" -- Le Nozze di Figaro

"Cinque, dieci" - Diana & Brandolino, Scala 2006

Kickin' It Old Skool: Le nozze di Figaro, Overture (Eugen Jochum, 1964)

The Latest Theory Re: Mozart's Death -- A Streptococcal Infection

Opera Chic tends to accept the conclusions of the classic study by Peter J. Davies on Mozart's ilnesses and death (.pdf here; the truly excellent book is here); still, it's probably inevitable that scholars and doctors will forever argue about what really happened on that December night to poor Amadé: the diagnostic possibilities are just too many.

The latest example is "The Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: An Epidemiologic Perspective" where, apparently, enough evidence is presented that makes it possible to think that Mozart was killed by an infection -- a strep infection.

What matters most, to Opera Chic, is that right before dying Mozart asked that one piece of his be played, because he wanted to hear that music one last time before he took leave of this world. And it always touched OC's heart that he chose, of all his astonishing output, Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja: