I have just downloaded a whole file of bumpf on next year's season at the Royal Opera House and there are lots of goodies in store. Thanks to Christmas and birthday presents from generous and lovely people I have a whole wodge of Covent Garden vouchers to be spent and I intend to splurge.
I am going to have to be very strict with myself and see if I can save some for next year as there is a new 
production of Don Carlos in June 2008. The last time I saw Don Carlos at the opera house was when I was a mere teenager and it was the legendary performance conducted by Carlo Maria Guilini with Tito Gobbi, Jon Vickers and Boris Christoff amongst the starry cast. I have blogged about this before so will not make you suffer again. I also saw this opera at the Coliseum back in the 80s when Elizabeth was sung, superbly I might add, by Rita Hunter, a stunning Brunhilde in their ring cycle. Not even Rita's biggest and most devoted fans could say that she had a graceful stage presence as she was simply HUGE and appearing as Elizabeth de Valois in cloth of gleaming gold was not a good idea. One simply closed one's eyes and listened to the voice, and what a voice she had too.
Don Carlos is being sung by Rolando Villazon who would seem to me to be ideal for the part and Posa, who is one of those marvelously warm Verdi baritone roles, is being sung by Simon Keenlyside, a British baritone. (And I know this picture here of him is hardly Verdian but could not resist it. He looks rather fetching don't you think?)
This new production will be directed by Nicholas Hytner, whose directorial work ranges from the film The Madness of King George and The History boys, to Xerxes and the Magic Flute for English National Opera. I saw this Magic Flute last year and was totally enchanted by it. Quite magical as well as being very very funny. In Papageno's aria in the first act when he plays his bells to call the birds, a pure white dove flew from the wings at each call. The audience was full of children when I saw it that Saturday evening and the oohs and aaahs at the sight of these pure white elegant and graceful birds added to the feeling of delight that pervaded the house.
So on these grounds, this is a MUST for me.
The Ballet season looks equally promising with a terrific double bill for Christmas of Les Patineurs/Tales of Beatrix Potter which I shall definitely be booking for. I have the DVD of the Beatrix Potter ballet and well remember my two daughters watching our old video of this so often it ended up looking like a lace doily and had to be thrown out. Jeremy Fisher was our firm favourite with his great leaps and bounds across the lilies on the pond, closely followed by the Tale of the Two Bad Mice.
Then my favourite ballet of all - Romeo and Juliet. I have seen this Kenneth Macmillan production so 
many times I have lost count. It must have been in the repertoire now for nearly forty years as I remember seeing it back in the 60s with Margot Fontey and Rudolf Nureyev (never to be forgotten) and it is still going strong. I also saw Nureyev dance in this with Lesley Collier, and later in the 1970s I saw a performance which, in my opinion, eclipsed even Margot and Rudi.
The two lead roles were taken by Anthony Dowell and Natalia Makarova (who had defected from the then Soviet Union and fled to the West from the Kirov ballet) and it was quite simply the most breathtakingly stunning performance I have ever attended of any ballet. The sheer beauty of the pas de deux, the Balcony Scene, at the end of Act One just hurt to watch and was so beautiful I found it difficult to speak when the curtain came down. I was with a party of ten that night and we all staggered speechless to the bar for a drink totally unable to articulate our feelings about what we had just seen. I have to say that when the curtains closed there was a stunned silence throughout the entire house and the applause started in a very subdued manner, so it had affected everyone.
I have seen various partnerings since, all of whom have been wonderful, it is a ballet which seems to bring out the best in dancers because of the deep emotions they are called upon to portray. This season Carlos Acosta is Romeo and as I have never seen him do it before, this is the one I am going to go for. He is partnered with Tamara Rojo who is exquisite (I saw them both in Manon last year) so this augurs well. I feel my vouchers stirring in the corner of my jewelry box where they are being stored. One entrechat and they will soon be centre stage and pirouetting all the way to the Opera House box office.
Can't wait!
