Robert Carsen
2021
Verdi: Falstaff
Gary Halvorson, Robert Carsen
Ambrogio Maestri, Franco Vassallo
Music Director James Levine conducts his first new Met production after a two-year absence: Robert Carsen’s hit staging of Verdi’s great human comedy. Ambrogio Maestri is an ideal Falstaff, leading an extraordinary ensemble cast of veteran and up-and-coming Met stars, including Angela Meade (Alice), Stephanie Blythe (Mistress Quickly), Franco Vasallo (Ford), and Jennifer Johnson Cano (Meg). Lisette Oropesa and Paolo Fanale are the young lovers, Nannetta and Fenton.
The Metropolitan Opera: Falstaff
Verdi: Don Carlo
Robert Carsen, François Roussillon
Andrea Carè, Stephen Milling
Elizabeth of Valois is promised in marriage to Don Carlos of Spain, as part of a peace treaty between the two kingdoms. They meet and fall in love – but no sooner have they declared their love than news comes that the terms of the treaty have changed: Elizabeth is to marry Carlos’s father Philip instead. Politics and religion are dangerously entwined in Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo. Performed on November 30th, 2016, at the Opéra national du Rhin, Strasbourg.
Verdi: Don Carlo
Mozart: Don Giovanni - Teatro alla Scala
Robert Carsen
Peter Mattei, Kwangchul Youn
An all-star cast featuring Deutsche Grammophon artist Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel and Anna Prohaska, delivers a sensational new performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni, conducted by Daniel Barenboim at the start of his inaugural season as Music Director of La Scala.
Mozart: Don Giovanni - Teatro alla Scala
Les Contes d'Hoffman
Robert Carsen
Ramón Vargas, Stéphanie d'Oustrac
This adaptation of three tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a sprinkling of Goethe’s Faust, portrays the German poet as both narrator and hero recounting his love affairs with Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta. Robert Carsen’s spectacular production highlights the melancholy genius of a man marked by life, with a coherence and dramatic sense remarkable for a work that leaves numerous questions unanswered. Under the baton of Philippe Jordan, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Ermonela Jaho, Kate Aldrich, Yann Beuron and Ramón Vargas and Stefano Secco in the main role, interpret the legendary airs of this work whose brilliant mystery will continue to dazzle opera houses for countless years to come.
Les Contes d'Hoffman
Rinaldo
Robert Carsen
Sonia Prina, Varduhi Abrahamyan
Rinaldo (HWV 7) is an opera by George Frideric Handel composed in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill. The work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket on 24 February 1711. The story of love, battle and redemption set at the time of the First Crusade is loosely based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), and its staging involved many original and vivid effects. It was a great success with the public, despite negative reactions from literary critics hostile to the trend towards Italian entertainment in English theatres.
Rinaldo
Katia Kabanova
Robert Carsen
Oleg Bryjak, Miroslav Dvorsky
The oppressive atmosphere before a storm and the tragic fate of a tormented young woman form the indivisible elements of "Katia Kabanova". The opera's action is set in a small Russian village around 1860 and represents the annihilation and subsequent suicide of Katerina Kabanova, a sensitive young woman married to a weak man and bullied by her mother-in-law, who is searching for liberation through love and ends her life consumed by remorse for her infidelity. The story's common denominator is the Volga river, a witness of the main character's hapless family relations and her frustrated passion, and in whose merciful waters she finally finds peace. The adaptation into the Czech language of Ostrovsky's tragic play "The Storm" allowed Janáček to create one of his most outstanding operas, in which the conciseness and intensity of the musical language are merged with the dramatic force of his libretto. This is the Teatro Madrid Production Recorded in December, 2008.
Katia Kabanova
Boito Mefistofele
Frank Zamacona, Robert Carsen
Ildar Abdrazakov, Ramón Vargas
The season kicks off with Boitos resplendent retelling of Goethes Faust, a monumental work of 'choral grandeur and melodic richness' (The New York Times) in one of the most impressive productions ever seen at the War Memorial Opera House. The cast includes Ramón Vargas, a tenor 'in ravishing voice' (Financial Times), as the philosopher who sells his soul to the Devil; the 'luminous, compelling' Patricia Racette (Washington Post) as the woman he desires; and, in the vividly menacing title role, the 'seductively malevolent' bass-baritone Ildar Abdrazakov, a 'fullbodied bass-baritone' renowned for his 'wonderfully evil portrayals' (The New York Times).
Boito Mefistofele
Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Robert Carsen
Ramón Vargas, Nadine Koutcher
This adaptation of three tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with a sprinkling of Goethe’s Faust, portrays the German poet as both narrator and hero recounting his love affairs with Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta. Robert Carsen’s spectacular production highlights the melancholy genius of a man marked by life, with a coherence and dramatic sense remarkable for a work that leaves numerous questions unanswered. Under the baton of Philippe Jordan, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Ermonela Jaho, Kate Aldrich, Yann Beuron and Ramón Vargas and Stefano Secco in the main role, interpret the legendary airs of this work whose brilliant mystery will continue to dazzle opera houses for countless years to come.
Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann
Die Zauberflöte - Baden-Baden
Robert Carsen
Ana Durlovski, Dimitry Ivashchenko
An arresting and star-studded production of Mozart’s Singspiel nonpareil: in the 2013 Baden-Baden Easter Festival, a group of outstanding soloists joined Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker for Die Zauberflöte in an attractive and naturalistic staging by Robert Carsen.
Die Zauberflöte - Baden-Baden
Candide
Robert Carsen
William Burden, Anna Christy
Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the 1759 novella of the same name by Voltaire. In 2006, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the creation of Candide, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris produced a new production under the direction of Robert Carsen. The production transforms the proscenium into a giant 1950s-era TV set, and has Voltaire, appearing as the narrator, changing channels between certain scenes. Carsen sets the action in a 1950s/1960s world, with an American slant commenting on contemporary world politics. This production was filmed and broadcast on Arte.
Candide
