The days go zooming by and it is 5 days since I left Madrid after an afternoon of auditions which yielded one exciting qualifier for the finals plus some strong candidates for the wait list which we will be reviewing in depth after the Munich auditions which are June 11-12. Meanwhile we have Dublin next week, there has been two days of auditions in Bologna conducted by Evamaria Wieser, and Evamaria is in Riga next week where we have done very well indeed in past years. In the USA next week Alexander Neef will hear the candidates who have applied to sing in Santa Fe. Following Munich Evamaria will take in Moscow and Vienna and that will be that for Europe. South Africa comes in July and China and Japan in September......
This week we did London at the Royal Opera House - the longest list ever here so we spread it over two days. And there was some good pickings. At this stage we are still setting the bench mark quite high so as ever there were more waitlisters than qualifiers. But there four of the latter which is a very fruitful outcome indeed........
Meanwhile there was some actual opera - last Friday evening in the Teatro Real a Hauptprobe of Christof Loy's very beautiful and interesting new production of one of my top favourites Richard Strauss's Capriccio. It seems that Swedish sopranos have a particular affinity with the role of the Countess. Elisabeth Soderstrom was glorious in the role at Glyndebourne in 1963, and then again in the 1970s. Miah Persson was stunning in the part last year at Garsington - and now Madrid has the huge treat of the magical Malin Byström - just wonderful, and well worth a special trip to Madrid just for this! It is a co-production with Zurich and Gothenburg so maybe you can catch it there in due course.
And now I have an orgy of opera this week, with Garsington's 30th anniversary season opening last night with a delicious production by Paul Curran of Smetana's Bartered Bride. Tonight is the opening of Don Giovanni and on Sunday I am at Glyndebourne for Berlioz's Damnation de Faust.
There was wonderful singing from the four main Bartered Bride principals and a terrifically strong cast overall, not to mention the remarkable Garsington Chorus and the acrobats and jugglers! Natalia Romaniw and Brenden Gunnell as the young lovers were immaculate vocally, thrilling indeed. And Stuart Jackson and Joshua Bloom each gave rounded and splendidly sung comic performances as Vasek and Kecal. And there was the additional luxury of the Philharmonia Orchestra in the pit playing immaculately and idiomatically for Jac van Steen. A joyous evening indeed.
And when you go to Garsington this year do not forget to pick up the 2019 edition of the Garsington mug, designed as in most previous recent years since 2013, by my talented nephew Zeb Helm! This year's will make it six - a very nice collection to have!
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