Contents

FRONT OF HOUSE EDITORIAL A glorious vocal heritage

LETTERS Your views and suggestions

NEWS & NOTES Remembering composers Harrison Birtwistle and Philippe Boesmans

REVIEWS - LIVE REVIEWS English National Opera Handmaid’s Tale (38); UK Round-up: English Touring Opera; London Handel Festival; Royal Northern College of Music (40) Venue focus: Opéra Royal de Versailles – Cupid & Death, Alcina (44); Royal Danish Opera The Nose (48) Tokyo Spring Festival: Lohengrin, Turandot (50) Detroit Opera La bohème (backwards) (53) Sarasota Opera Winter Festival: La fille du régiment; The Pearl Fishers, Tosca (54); Opera in concert: Eden – Joyce DiDonato (57)

- RECORDINGS New releases on CD & DVD (56-61) including Arias by Lehár; Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt; Weber’s Der Freischütz; Mozart’s Idomeneo and Così fan tutte. Opera Now Choice: Benjamin Berheim’s new solo album. Plus: Soprano Chen Reiss’ new album spotlighting Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn

- SPOTLIGHT World Wide Opera Guide and answers to this issue’s Quiz (p71)

Cover: Nadine Sierra as Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples COVER PHOTO: LUCIANO ROMANO

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‘People here in the South of Italy are more generous, more simpatico and more creative. The South has

a superb and longer cultural and musical tradition than the North’

Stéphane Lissner, general director of Teatro San Carlo, Naples

CONTENTS

- Special Report: Opera in Spain

Cover feature: Naples Renewed The Teatro di San Carlo house in Naples is among the world’s oldest and most illustrious opera houses. We meet the new and visionary artistic team who are transforming the theatre’s fortunes

Dame Clara Butt We explore the short but eventful stage career of a singing megastar born 150 years ago whom Saint-Saëns wanted to cast as his operatic seductress Dalila

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Preview: La Gioconda Amanda Echalaz discusses her debut in one of opera’s most challenging soprano roles, which she sings at Grange Park Opera this summer Directing Rusalka Jack Furness on his Garsington Opera debut, staging Dvořák’s heartrendingly beautiful operatic masterpiece Travels with my Opera Glasses Professor Anthony Ogus takes the train to Basel to see three operas ranging over four centuries My Favourite Things John Copley, opera director Quiz Test your opera knowledge

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