Recommendation - Sometime in the next month, preferably in the evening, with a bottle of champagne chilling, a good bottle, put on your tuxedo or evening gown, just joking, pajamas are fine, but your good ones; you are about to enter the presence of beauty. Then, pour your glasses, sit back and dial up Operavision’s Summer Gala, which will be available on demand for free until 7/21/2020. Begin your journey to eight grand opera houses of Europe where outstanding opera stars will provide the nourishment you need. They call it a “gala”, but what it really feels like is a “homecoming”, a homecoming for the beauty that is opera. Enmesh yourself and feel it. Let go of the last four months. The European opera community is offering you a preview of what is to come, of what we still have to look forward to. You can hit the pause button and clap as long as you like after every performance.
The Summer Gala trailer video (Youtube).
The Summer Gala, streamed live on Sunday, June 21 was a celebration of World Music Day. Kasper Holten, CEO of the Royal Danish Theater and the evening’s MC, led off by explaining that eight companies across Europe came together to open their doors, most for the first time in months, to give audiences a mid-summer concert, perhaps a way of announcing that the re-opening of music in Europe lies just ahead, or at least ahead. The concert bears added interest for the glimpses of the grand opera halls, seen without fans and with social distancing measures observed by the performers. It is a tribute to Operavision that each venue and performance felt connected, as though they were different scenes in a larger whole. Each venue seems to be saying, “Look, this is opera; we miss you too!”
The participating venues -
Rome, Teatro dell’Opera
Sussex, Glyndebourne
Paris, Opéra-Comique
Warsaw, Polish National Opera
Berlin, Komische Oper
Amsterdam, Dutch National Opera
Madrid, Teatro Real
Stockholm, Royal Swedish Opera
I will only highlight a few of the performances, but so hungry for live opera was I that I lapped up each and every performance with relish (for the full list of performers, go to the Summer Gala web page and scroll down). Most performances were straight forward concert presentations with singers and piano accompaniment, but Berlin threw in some fun and Amsterdam even gave us a bit of drama, while wedding bells could be heard in the distance in Warsaw before Stockholm provided the big finish. Each new venue and group of performers were introduced by Mr. Holten.
The first performance was from Italy, appropriate as the birthplace of opera, where baritone Roberto Frontali gave an impassioned aria from Andrea Chenier and soprano Rosa Feola sang the famous “Caro Nome” from Rigoletto with accompaniment by pianist Enrica Ruggiero. The scene then shifted to Glyndebourne in Sussex and the mood got lighter when the soprano with the big beautiful, infectious smile and gorgeous voice, Danielle de Niese, joined the concert. It is not only the great music and arias that make opera so enjoyable, it is also the different vocal timbres, singing and acting abilities, and personal intangibles that different singers bring to a role.
The traditional concert formats were working fine, but then at the Komische Oper in Berlin, Artistic Director and pianist Barrie Kosky gave us something different and quite a treat. He accompanied soprano Alma Sadé on the piano while they performed songs from Yiddish operettas. That was followed up by another highlight in Amsterdam from the Dutch National Opera. Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek, baritone Oliemans, pianist Ernst Munneke, and violinist and concert master Vadim Tsibulevsky gave a suave one-act romantic scene in presenting their arias, very cool (I hope by that time you still have champagne to give them a toast)!
After a marvelous stop-over with the Teatro Real in Madrid, we headed to the big finish in Stockholm with the Swedish National Opera where international diva, Nina Stemme, gave us two arias with piano accompaniment by Inese Klotina and then the evening’s climax with an ensemble of about 20 players from the Royal Swedish Orchestra. The orchestra members may have been six feet apart, but remember this is Sweden which has followed a different set of guidelines for containment of COVID-19. Regardless, Ms. Stemme was tremendous and ended the concert singing the Liebestod beautifully.
Curtain down. All that’s left is to pour yourself an evening-closing measure of cognac.
The Fan Experience: The Summer Gala, at a little over two hours, will be available for free viewing on Operavision’s website until noon, CET on 7/21/2020; it is also available on YouTube. Subtitles in different languages can be turned on or off as desired. Subtitles were not available during the live broadcast, and frankly, I found it more enjoyable without them. I suggest you watch first without the subtitles to soak in the beauty without thinking, and then, return to view the concert with subtitles turned on if you wish to know the arias better.
I recommend getting to know Operavision’s website, even signing up for their newsletter. The cooperative mainly offers operas performed in Europe, streamed for free on demand (for a limited period of time), in a substantial collection. It is a collective effort of the European Union involving 29 companies from 17 countries. I have watched some of these. They are most often recently-staged and of high quality, in excellent video recordings, and the productions often display wildly creative approaches to both traditional and modern operas. And it is all free.