Page 155 - FINAL_CBSO Media Highlights - Sept 2021 - Jan 2022_Neat

The Royal Opera was admirably first into the post-lockdown fray on May 17 with a new modern-
dress production of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito by Richard Jones, which, however, didn’t stir
much enthusiasm. Full audiences were back for its September season opener of Verdi’s Rigoletto
by director of opera Oliver Mears. Everyone was bowled over by soprano Lisette Oropesa, who
later sang Violetta in La traviata there to great acclaim – she is definitely the star of the year.
It was left to the new Royal Opera staging of Janáček’s Jenůfa by Claus Guth, delayed from before
the lockdown but miraculously reassembled with Karita Mattila and Asmik Grigorian in the
leading roles, to create a really world-class new production. The issue that hangs heavily over the
Royal Opera, however, is the now-certain departure of music director Antonio Pappano to the LSO
in 2024 (which in operatic terms is tomorrow). It’s impossible to exaggerate what an ideal music
director Pappano has been, not only in the blazing energy of his own performances, but in his
commitment to the work of the house. He will be difficult to follow.

English National Opera opened with an upbeat HMS Pinafore directed by Cal McCrystal with Les
Dennis as Sir Joseph Porter, and a less successful start to its Ring cycle with The Valkyrie. Among
many lockdown adventures, its huge achievement was to invent the award-winning ENO Breathe,
using the voice in therapy to help mitigate the impact of continuing Covid.

Hold tight: Karita Mattila and Jerry Hadley in Janáček’s Jenůfa at the Royal Opera
House CREDIT: Alastair Muir

There were several versions of Janáček’s heart-warming The Cunning Little Vixen, by
Longborough, Holland Park, and in concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. A real rarity, Handel’s early opera Amadigi, had two productions in the
same short year, by English Touring Opera and by Garsington, where Netia Jones’s staging was
stylishly postmodern. Surely the most ambitious staging of 2021 was Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier
at Garsington; though the orchestration was reduced, it was awarded by one critic “the golden rose
award for sheer chutzpah”.

At Grange Park Opera in Surrey Bryn Terfel showed he is still one of world’s great Falstaffs in
Verdi’s vernal opera, while over at the original Grange Festival in Hampshire, Michael Chance’s