Skip to main content

ROH: Jenůfa review – Mattila is formidable in new Janaček staging

Royal Opera House, London
Claus Guth’s symbolism-heavy production is at its best when simplest. Asmik Grigorian and Karita Mattila are a strong pairing and conductor Henrik Nánási has the measure of the score

Postponed only days before it was due to open because of last year’s lockdown, Claus Guth’s Royal Opera production of Janáček’s Jenůfa has finally reached the stage some 18 months after originally planned – albeit with a number of cast changes and a different conductor (Henrik Nánási in place of Vladimir Jurowski). The crucial central pairing of Asmik Grigorian in the title role and Karita Mattila as Kostelnička remains, though. The company’s first new Jenůfa in 20 years, this is also the first time that Guth has directed one of Janáček’s operas. His approach, pitching the work into territory somewhere between Strindberg and German expressionism, is likely to polarise opinion.

Gesine Völlm’s costumes suggest the late 19th century, though rural Moravia is replaced by urban anonymity, and Guth’s symbolism is distractingly heavy-handed in the opening acts. The first takes place not in a mill but a workhouse, where labourers shuffle through soul-destroying daily routines overseen by Elena Zilio’s Grandmother Buryjovka, dominatrixy in black bombazine with a riding crop.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ogWzYw
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knives Out review – Daniel Craig goes Columbo in Cluedo whodunnit

Craig grills an all-star lineup of suspects when a wealthy novelist is found dead in Rian Johnson’s sharp, country-house murder mystery R ian Johnson unsheathes an entertainingly nasty, if insubstantial detective mystery with his new film, Knives Out. Back in 2005, his debut movie Brick (a high-school thriller) paid tribute to the hardboiled noir genre. Now he does the same thing for cosy crime, although there is nothing that cosy about it. Knives Out has a country house full of frowning suspects, deadpan servants and smirking ne’er-do-wells and an amusing performance from Daniel Craig as Benoît Blanc, the brilliant amateur sleuth from Louisiana who annoys the hell out of one and all by smiling enigmatically, occasionally plinking a jarring high note on the piano during the drawing-room interrogation and pronouncing in his southern burr: “Ah suh-spect far-wuhl play!” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L0NKO4
Post a Comment
Read more

Thirty Years of Adonis film review: sexually explicit gay drama mixes porn and pomposity

1/5 stars The line between soft-core porn and pompous art-house cinema grows ever finer in the seventh feature by writer, director and producer Danny Cheng Wan-cheung, also known as Scud. Intended as a philosophical statement about the meaninglessness of life, Thirty Years of Adonis instead comes across as a badly misjudged piece of sensationalist filmmaking. God’s Own Country review: gay love story set in the Yorkshire countryside The film revolves around aspiring gay actor Adonis Yang... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2qgQkop
Post a Comment
Read more

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more