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Different Women
'Electra' and 'Elena' at Aix-en-Provence,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
This year's Aix-en-Provence Festival features five different operas and several concerts; it extends throughout the month of July, and was preceded in June by a large gamut of musical activities (mostly by the Académie Européenne de Musique) open to the local population (and visitors) either free or at very low prices.
I saw three operas. I decided to forgo the new production of Rigoletto because in Verdi's bicentenary year it is on the program of several Italian opera houses where I can get it with a more local flavor, and also a revival of a 2010 production of Don Giovanni already reviewed in this magazine ['Nearly a Male Lulu', 10 July 2010]. Here, I focus on two stagings premiered in Aix but programmed to travel to several countries: Elektra (jointly produced by the Aix Festival with Milan La Scala, New York Metropolitan Opera, Oslo National Opera of Finland, Berlin Staatsoper-unter-den Linden and the Barcelona Liceu, and likely to be leased by several other theaters) and Elena (already scheduled to go to Versailles, Montpellier, Lille, Angers, Rennes and Lisbon, and most likely also to tour Italy and the UK)...
Copyright © 30 July 2013
Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy
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