The plan smacked of hysteria. Take Alt om min Familie, an opera for and by teenagers, to Stavanger with a new main-role singer, a stand-in director, new conductor and orchestra, work in a venue which no-one knew well, and pull it together on minimal rehearsal – i.e. arriving on Friday afternoon for a show the […]
Tag: Bergen Nasjonale Opera
Issue-aware opera
There are a couple of wonderfully self-contradicting statements in this month´s Opera Now editorial: the first states that John Adams´s Nixon in China is the most successful opera of the last 25 years in terms of total performances and exemplary box office. The second states that ” (opera is not) …a suitable vehicle for reductive […]
More straight talk in 2014…
Happy New Year! Full of idealistic resolutions about gym membership and drastic dietary upheaval, last night I settled into the seasonal gloom to watch the opening episode of a boxed Blu-ray set given to me for Christmas. And I found an interesting message for anyone interested in programming. The show, written by the US team […]
Edward Seckerson talks Bergen Opera to Mary Miller and Andrew Litton
What makes Beethoven’s Fidelio great – but still makes the opera the ‘problem child’ of so many directors? Mary Miller and conductor Andrew Litton talk to UK journalist Edward Seckerson about Bergen National Opera and a whole new conception for staging Beethoven’s masterpiece. Listen to the podcast