Diana Damrau reviews
Tudor Queens (Donizetti)
Diana Damrau (soprano), et al; Santa Cecilia Choir & Orchestra/Antonio Pappano (Erato)
Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder
Diana Damrau (soprano); Helmut Deutsch (piano); Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons (Erato)
Hugo Wolf: Italienisches Liederbuch
Diana Damrau, Jonas Kaufmann & Helmut Deutsch (Erato)
Damrau's beautiful performance of Bellini's I Puritani
This last opera of Bellini’s may not be his greatest work – obviously Norma is that – but it is full of lovely music.
Katie Mitchell directs Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
Katie Mitchell’s ‘split-screen’ production of Lucia di Lammermoor opened to mixed reviews in 2016: some focusing on the drip of the plumbing in Vicki Mortimer’s scrupulous reconstruction of a Victorian bathroom; some on over-crowding issues in the grand set pieces for chorus and principals; some on the intrusive manifestations of the ghosts of the Lammermuir girl and Lucia’s mother. The staging is over-stuffed but it is not stupid or careless.
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
This is Covent Garden’s latest Magic Flute production, filmed in January. It’s a mixed bag, hard to recommend as a total Flute experience over other DVDs already available. For one component part, though, it’s a must-have. Simon Keenlyside’s Papageno offers none of the vaudeville high jinks traditionally associated with the role: he brings to its comedy a Pierrot lunaire-like poetry, precisely achieved down to the smallest detail. This Papageno arouses both delight and poignant emotions, and his singing is wonderfully strong and true in style.