What are you talking about?

I attended Polykrates on Friday 15th June in Luebeck and also Violanta on Saturday 16th In Bremerhaven. Both performances were excellent. The Bremerhaven production of Violanta was odd, to say the least: the woman singing Violanta was a little long in the tooth for the part - she looked more like Al...

The long-missing 1983 broadcast of "die tote Stadt" from the Deutsche Oper Berlin is currently available from Premiere Opera. It's in 4:3 TV format and mono. Obviously recorded from German TV. The visuals aren't too bad and the sound is acceptable. The production is traditional. Also available from ...

I would say that a 35 minute suite would be pretty good. Much as I love Korngold's music, having the full 105 minutes worth of film music as a whole concert would be a step too far.

The Finnish National Opera is giving DIE TOTE STADT later this year (1st night 26/11/2010 - 7 performances until 20/12/2010. Conductor Mikko Franck, Paul is Klaus Florian Vogt / Mati Turi, Marietta is Camilla Nylund. The FNO are very good. Seats are moderately expensive but not as bad as Covent Gard...

The Sea Hawk is 5 minutes long? Well, no. The Naxos edition lasts 105 minutes for the "full" score. I don't know how long the excerpts to be played in Scotland will last but I hope more than five minutes' worth!

The point is not that 10th rate music is more popular than good music. The point is that the people who participate in polls for Classic fm are as ignorant as *******. After all, just take a look at the content of Classic fm's "Top 300 Hall of Fame" which includes a load of tripe from TV ads. If all...

The Pfalztheater in Kaiserslautern is producing Das Wunder der Heliane this year (premiere 10th April). This theatre is of an excellent standard and has made a speciality of "Degenerate Art" operas in recent years - I saw "Flammen" by Schreker there a couple of years ago.

Die tote Stadt will receive a new production later this year at Oper Frankfurt, in February/March 2010 at the Musiktheater im Revier in Geslsenkirchen and in May at the Nancy Opera. Also the peripetatic Decker staging will reappear occasionally in Paris and Madrid. But the big news is that Das Wund...

As I am sure most of you will know, Korngold's masterpiece is finally getting its UK premiere at Covent Garden in January 2009. I shall be there for the first night, front row stalls, no less.

I hear tickets are selling well.

I attended the performance of Heliane at the Festival Hall and enjoyed it greatly, as did the near-sell out audience. But then, they were mostly diehard Korngold fans, so they would have applauded wildly wouldn't they? Perhaps the critics were unduly harsh, but the facts must be faced: the performan...

And most productions I have seen serve up the opera in effectively 2 parts: Act 1+2/Interval/Final act. Even so, it's nearly 3 hours in the theatre.

Yes I saw the Koeln production too (in 2000); this was another Hitchcock-style one if I recall with Sidwell Hartman and Vivienne Tierney. Straightforward compared to the Hagen version! Best version I have seen is the one at Theater Altenburg-Gera - if they ever revive it, go! The Strasbourg DVD vers...

I went to seee die tote Stadt in Hagen in the Ruhr last week. It was seriously, seriously bad. The singing was adequate and the Marie was actually very good indeed. Sadly the production was truly desperate. Paul was portrayed as a total lunatic, Psycho style, clawing at the air like Renfield trying ...

Yes, much truth there. However, whilst Classic fm is totally awful and banal to snobs such as we, it performs an educational function and a promotional one too. Two examples.... 1. I heard a couple of pieces of music there, neither of which I knew, even though I have a pretty huge CD collection; bot...