Pregledi profilov
7"...Alexandra Yangel’s youthful but determined mezzo-soprano sound as Sonya."
“In the performance I attended, Alexandra Yangel in the role of Marguerite left the most lasting impression. Her voice has an engaging sound that is capable of reflecting emotions. Her performance sounds tender and soulful. Her dialogue with Faust is full of passion. The naturalness of her performance is perfectly suited to the character.”
Pregledi pretekle produkcije
2Eötvös states, “My music is theatre music”. It is no wonder that the melodies the 77-year-old composer puts on paper are always dramatic, rich in imagery, vivid and, indeed, theatrical. He achieves this with normal orchestration plus a few additional percussion instruments. His music always remains harmonious, no strident discordancies here. As a conductor, he kept the fine-sounding Staatskapelle under gentle control, right down to the last, fading solo violin note. The singers were well cast in this multifaceted work, with astonishingly good English diction. Soprano Victoria Randem sang Alida with lush equanimity and beautiful shadings. Her characterisation of the young mother and her concern for her newborn, to the extent of shutting all extraneous events around her, is remarkable. The very bright, high tenor of Linard Vrielink was a good fit for the desperate but loving Asle, the future father turned nervous murderer.
Peter Eötvös was both star composer and conductor tonight in Geneva, presenting his thirteenth opera, Sleepless, and leading from the pit. A joint commission from the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Grand Théâtre, this was the second production and joint premiere of the opera, after Berlin in November 2021, and although the Swiss audience’s reception was a little lukewarm – Geneva’s opera-house stalwarts still not quite settled into Aviel Cahn’s admirable shift of direction in his time at the helm, perhaps – there was much to admire, and to think about, here.
