ONTENTS
JUNE 1994
Editor Graeme Kay Deputy Editor Rachel Connolly Associate Editors Ashutosh Khandekar
Clare Stewart Art Editor Sarah Davies Deputy Art Editors
Steve Talkington Phi! Wingrove Advertising Manager
Sarah Williams Sales Executive Matthew Potter Advertising Production
Manager Joanna Moore Subscriptions Clare Squire Marketing Manager
Richard Thomas Publishing Manager
Therese Claffey Marketing Director
Keith Diggle Managing Director
Tony Gamble Printed in the UK by
Perfectaprint Byfleet, Surrey Distributed by Comag
(0895 444055) (Front cover) Cheryl Studer Photo: DGG (R ight) Amhony Rolfe Jolmson as Peter Grimes
Photo: Bill Cooper
6
Opera news and features The price of success: new seasons at Covent Garden and English National Opera (6) • Edinburgh's long-awaited opera house; Proms opera preview (8) • People in the news: conductor Yuri Temirkanov; composers Louis Andriessen and Martin Butler; and Sadler's Wells Opera veteran Eric Shilling ( 10) • news in brief ( 13)
16
Music theatre special feature Kent Opera is back with The Prodigal Son. Richard Fawkes talks to founder Norman Platt, and producer Tim Carroll (16)
• Peter Maxwell Davies' stunning operatic mystery, The Lighthouse is revived by Music Theatre Wales. Rachel Connolly reports (20)
23
Cover feature Sing-anything Cheryl Studer is back at Covent Garden as Aida. Phi I Sommerich profiles an unusually versatile American soprano
28
Singers of the Century Arleen Auger's singing was suffused with human warmth; she died at the peak of her powers. John Steane pays tribute to a lyric soprano who put dedication to music before career
32
Opera People Andrew Stewart meets designer David Fielding, now branching out into directing; Covent Garden's 'other' Aida Nina Rautio, and the ebullient tenor Giuseppe Sabbatini
36
Every day another miracle ... Anne Inglis joins Welsh National Opera and discovers that no show would ever make it to the stage without brains, brawn and Marks & Spencer
40
Opera Guide Wagner's monumental Ring cycle presents opera companies with their biggest single challenge. In the first of a four-part series, Noel Goodwin introduces the prelude to the main event- Das Rheingold
OPERA NOW is published by Rhinegold
Publishing Limited "Opera Now" is a trade
mark of Opera Now Enterprises Limited. Rhinegold Publishing Ltd, 241 Shaftesbury Avenue,
London WC2H SEH Advertising 071-333 1733 Editorial 071-333 1740
Fax071-3331769 E-mail75:MUS023
Second Class Postage Paid Perm~ Number tt 074 at South Hackensack NJ postmaster; send address changes to Royal Mail International rlo Yellowstone, 2375 Pratt Blvd., Elk Grove Village, IL60007, USA
42
Opera World Opera with a wall and with no back wall at all? St Louis and Santa Fe offer two of the US A's more exotic operatic experiences. Heidi Waleson reports
REGULARS Letters ... 15 First Nights .. . 46 Opera in View ... 50 Audio Reviews ... 52 Books ... 57 Box Office ... 58 Listings ... 59 In Recital ... 70 Live Reviews ... 71 Scene and Heard ... 7 4
We do our best to avoid inaccuracies but~ you believe that an error has been made please contact the editor straight away before taking any other action and he will do what needs to be done to put the matter right.
Subscriptions administered by Rhinegold Publishing Subscriptions,
PO Box 47, Gravesend, Kent DA12 2AN
Tel: 0474 334500 Fax: 0474 325557
FREE
3