Women have held many roles in the world of opera, from the central figure of the prima donna to the charitable and generous patron. This playlist compiles operas that tell the story of a woman’s life, all of which were composed by men, and invites viewers to explore the ways in which these stories are given new contexts and new life when directed by women.
The Rape of Lucretia Directed by Fiona Shaw
Seventy years after its Glyndebourne world premiere, Benjamin Britten’s first chamber opera is welcomed home with ‘a performance of enthralling emotional power and physical beauty’ gifted with ‘piercingly intelligent, immaculately realised staging and superb singing, acting and playing’ led by ‘Fiona Shaw’s supremely nuanced direction’ and underpinned by ‘febrile playing’ from members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (The Telegraph ★★★★★).
The production eloquently and tastefully tackles the difficult subject, which is lent emotional weight by ‘Christine Rice’s grandly sung Lucretia, noble in tone yet tragically vulnerable’, along with baritone Duncan Rock’s ‘forthright’ Tarquinius and the ‘smooth bass’ of Matthew Rose as the caring Collatinus (The Guardian ★★★★).
Rusalka Directed by Melly Still
Praised by critics as ‘magnificent’, ‘breathtakingly theatrical’ and full of ‘zestful imagination’, Melly Still’s ‘spine-tingling’ Rusalka is a Glyndebourne classic – a magical contemporary reimagining of a much-loved fairy tale. Light and darkness, beauty and danger come together in this passionate tale of love against the odds.
At once evocative and unsettling, this is a production in which two contrasting worlds collide through Rae Smith’s elegant designs made of ‘brilliant stage-pictures’. Rusalka’s forest home is a dappled space of sunshine and shadows, full of strange woodland creatures, while the Prince’s court is a world of sleek modernity and sophistication – a world of man.
Ariadne auf Naxos Directed by Katharina Thoma
In her UK debut, Katherina Thoma transforms Strauss’s classic piece of genteel entertainment into an exposition of raw emotion and thought-provoking social commentary. The decision to displace Ariadne from her lonesome island to a second world war hospital allows Thoma to unearth character depths unseen in previous productions.
Glyndebourne’s wartime history as a home for evacuee children is the ingenious context for a new production of this unclassifiable entertainment in which low comedy and high tragedy compete for our attention, ‘borne aloft by Strauss’s divine music and Hofmannsthal’s visionary poetry’. At the centre of this production from Katharina Thoma is the noble, tragic figure of the abandoned Ariadne herself, in a haunting performance from Soile Isokoski, ‘with brilliant support from the pit’ (The Independent).
Cendrillon Directed by Fiona Shaw
With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales. Fiona Shaw’s production is seeped in magic, harking back to stories read before bed as the opera’s surreal staging plays in the ethereal realm of sleep.
In her dream, Cendrillion conjures the world of her desires. Drawing on Massenet’s casting of a female voice for the role of the prince, Shaw explores gender-fluidity through a longing for gentleness in Cendrillion’s perfect partner. This sensuous Belle Epoque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety.
Didone Directed by Francesca Cabrini and Davide Ortelli
The story of Cavalli's Didone comes to life in this production by Francesca Cabrini and Davide Ortelli. Thanks to numerous solo passages of highly varied character and structure, this iteration of Cavalli’s take on Virgil’s Aeneid enjoys moments in which a diversion from the action blends with the story’s escalation, thereby intensifying the performance in a studied, evocative manner.
The tragic story of the Carthaginian queen is thus unfolded with extreme attention in a framework that remains consistent with the genre yet is enlivened and given a more popular, direct appeal.
Image Credits on Learning Resources Page:Cendrillon (Glyndebourne, 2019)
