Press
| Press |
LA CENERENTOLATranslations from Swedish into English by Reynaldo Ricart ‘Malmö Opera’s staging of Rossini's "Cinderella" enacted in Cinecittà (Rome) is expensive, ingenious and tasteful... the stage scenery is superb and the show leaves nothing to be desired.’ Thomas Anderberg, Dagens Nyheter ‘Alessandro Talevi, currently busy on London’s theatrical scene, is about to become, by his spiritual readings and visual imagination, the opera equivalent to Alexander Mørk-Eidem. Talevi has previously set Haydn's La fedeltà Premiata in a Big Brother house, interpreted Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande as a Strindberg drama and placed Handel's Orlando on a fabulous ring with the orchestra in the middle. What could be more preposterous than a ball at the castle? Thus he turns Cinderella into a movie star with a Fellini twist which unexpectedly turns out to fit perfectly, even within the outline of Ferettis libretto... ‘Malmo Opera livens up our existence in advance of the rapidly approaching autumn darkness with a cheerfully entertaining and cleverly updated staging of Gioachino Rossini's "Cinderella" in Alessandro Talevi’s ingenious direction, with set design and costumes by Madeleine Boyd... ‘It is a clear and consistent reinterpretation of the saga’s adventure.’ Thomas Michelsen, Politiken
THE MARRIAGE/ LA CAMBIALE DI MATRIMONIOThe Marriage: ‘There is much scope for for Whitehall-style farce and for all sorts of grotesquerie, which Talevi grasped enthusiastically. Nutty Agafya, her ghastly aunt and the wierdo suitors were all sharply defined...The other great pleasure was Madeleine Boyd’s cubist set, and the act of auto-defenestration was simply and brilliantly done’. Peter Reed, Opera La Cambiale di Matrimonio: The pace was furious, but Talevi’s direction again was very detailed and mobile- on the evidence of this (and also of his Fedeltà premiata at the Royal Academy of Music) he has a sure eye for farcical excess, and he was not shy about folding his own updates into the libretto’. Peter Reed, Opera
LA FEDELTÀ PREMIATA 'The opening night of La fedeltà premiata in March glowed and sparkled... Director Alessandro Talevi played a masterstroke in confining the seemingly-preposterous action within a replica Big Brother House so that 'preposterous' becomes the natural order of the day, a dramatic infiltration leading to unexpected but brilliant collisions of slapstick and sublimity. Most of the cast were stars pretty-much already-made... This was at the same time a true ensemble performance which could transfer to any professional house with immediate ease.' ‘Trevor Pinnock conducted a bristling performance of La fedeltà premiata, with a witty, Big Brother reality TV setting by the young director Alessandro Talevi. Angela Bic, Fu Qian, Thomas Hobbs and the rest of this excellent cast are names to watch. True, the brash updating takes liberties, and purists might rue the absence of pastoral. But the work is robust enough to survive, and is even the better for it. You knew who was who in a plot of manic complexity, with much face slapping, many tears, a few satyrs and a wild boar. For the first time it seemed possible that Haydn's operas might, after all, find new life in the theatre.’ Fiona Maddocks, The Observer ‘The Academy presentation, directed by Alessandro Talevi, was playful: a series of Big Brother episodes, in modern dress, with many scenes reduced to a single modern setting... It’s hardly what one approves, but it worked as theatre, better than any Fedeltà I’ve seen before...’ Andrew Porter, Times Literary Supplement ‘Staged Brilliantly’ Michael Tanner, The Spectator
And for a completely different opinion...‘Having a director besmirch a repertory favourite can be irritating enough. But letting crassness loose on an opera as rare as Haydn's comic pastoral La fedeltà premiata is a mistake of a different stripe. And in the old boy's anniversary year, too! The perpetrators are Independent Opera's director Alessandro Talevi, the designer Madeline Boyd and the lighting designer Matthew Haskins. Together they have created a night best enjoyed with the eyes wide shut. Opened, you'd be watching Haydn's nymphs and whatnots recast as sluts and scruffs in a Big Brother setting, with the Priest configured as the TV producer and satyrs modelled on Russell Brand... ...If only energies aren't spent elaborating a tacky production conceit that keeps traducing the opera's charms. Characters' pride becomes bickering petulance. Instead of teasing wooing there is full-frontal attack. Violence is wrought upon an innocent teddy bear - surely the world's worst crime. Haydn's arias of suffering survive, but cruel comedy stamps on his wit and warmth. Two casts alternate, but whatever the personnel you'll still have to watch Big Brother’. Geoff Brown, The Times
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE‘Alessandro Talevi’s staging skips the symbolist mystique- it’s all there in the words- in favour of a psychological drama, more akin to Strindberg or Ibsen the Maeterlinck. Aided by Madeleine Boyd’s ingenious three-tier set and Matthew Haskins’ subtle lighting, he homes in on the personal relationships. In this patriarchal Victorian scenario Golaud seems less interested in loving Mélisande than in denying his half brother the right to grow up and think for himself. One moment he is caressing and combing Pelléas, the next he is throttling him. In spite of the period costumes, Pelléas emerges as very modern and very scary. Talevi’s biggest triumph is to get his cast to act this family tragedy so realistically’. Andrew Clark, Financial Times ***** ‘The sense of transgression is intensified in Alessandro Talevi’s highly physical production…I would guess that all involved will enjoy significant operatic careers’. Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday ***** ‘Alessandro Talevi’s new production for Independent Opera brings the faraway world of Pelléas et Mélisande up close. So close, in fact, that those in the front row may find some episodes playing out virtually in their laps. For an opera usually involving an orchestra that could fill an aircraft hangar, this is quite an achievement. And it works, largely thanks to the quirky imagination of Talevi and designer Madeleine Boyd’. Erica Jeal, The Guardian **** ‘We’re all poor little things, when all is said, sung and done: that is the message of Pelléas et Mélisande. To cut through the dark forest of symbolism and find the compassion at the heart of Debussy’s opera you have to come in close. And that is exactly what Independent Opera has done. Alessandro Talevi has devised a production that pares down the psychological implications of Maeterlinck’s words and Debussy’s score to almost Strindbergian bare bones. In Madeleine Boyd’s design, three levels of dark walkways are framed by cut-outs from Toulouse-Lautrec. And the characters emerge from a fractured Art Noveau demi-world into the great gaping nowhere of the kingdom of Allemonde. The Middle Ages give way to an uneasy Victorian milieu, suffocating and alienating the human spirit. None of this is in the least didactic. Responses seem to drift up from the score itself, passionately conducted by Dominic Wheeler, and from the minutely observed body language of Talevi’s stagecraft. The orchestra is glimpsed thorugh gaps in the walkways: the three levels are used eloquently to express loss, fear and domination. Hand-operated pulleys, as in a period theatre, enable Julie Pasturaud’s Geneviève and the wheelchair-bound Arkel, sung in beautifully sustained French by Fédéric Bourreau, to glide in from the shadows’. Hilary Finch, The Times **** ‘The performance was illuminated by a commitment and a freshness which made it a far more involving and truthful reading of this sublime work than the star-studded travesty at Covent Garden last year’. Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph ****
LA COLOMBE/L’OCCASIONE FA IL LADRO 'Alessandro Talevi's productions were inventively witty without being obtrusive. Madeleine Boyd's equally accomplished designs brought us Bohemian Paris at a recent date and 1970's Naples'. George Hall, Opera ‘A razor-sharp rom-com and Talevi kept the action anarchically swift’ Neil Fisher, The Times
THE SOFA‘No-one would have predicted that a double-bill of unknown operas by Elizabeth Maconchy would have caused such a stir. If Independent Opera, the vigorous young company that staged it, carries on in this vein- inventive staging, outstanding musical performance, good-looking ensemble cast- it’s in serious danger of giving opera a fashionable name’. * * * * * Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard ‘Alessandro Talevi’s staging, built around Madeleine Boyd’s ingenious horseshoe set, updated The Sofa and played it with such verve that any embarrassment over the 1950’s verbal idioms quickly vanished. The way the opera’s hedonistic anti-hero “became” the sofa was theatrical magic’. * * * * Andrew Clark, Financial Times ‘The way Sharratt morphs into his own sofa is ingenious; under Talevi’s direction, everything joyfully bursts the bonds of decorum, with the ubiquitous coupling at once comic and indecently real’ * * * * * Michael Church, The Independent ‘Alessandro Talevi’s productions are sharply defined, brilliantly so in the case of the comedy’. George Hall, The Stage
THE DEPARTURE‘Could it have been any better? I doubt it’. Chris Monk, Musical Opinion ‘Exciting Stuff’ * * * * * Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard ‘The Departure, with just two characters, was a sterner test of Talevi’s directing skills; he passed it with flying colours’. * * * *
ORLANDOThe performance of Orlando at the Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Theatre was, in many ways, a triumph. For Talevi in particular, who designed the sets as well as directing, it was a triumph over a famously awkward space’. Kimon Daltas, Opera Now ‘Talevi’s production, essentially simple and faithful to the text, made clever use of his tilted ring-shaped set, with the orchestra positioned at the centre of the action’. Hugh Canning, Opera ‘Splendid Handel from new talent’ * * * * Barry Millington, Evening Standard ‘Musically and dramatically the performers seemed utterly in tune with the opera’s exploration of the human psyche… much credit must go to the director and set designer Alessandro Talevi for what was a thoroughly satisfying and engaging exploration of a rich and beautiful work’. Tom Walker, Early Music Today
GRÄFIN MARIZA‘A fluffy little operetta that delighted’ Moira de Swardt, Artslink SA
LA SCALA DI SETA‘Alessandro Talevi, as artistic director, was responsible for the slick, updated staging, which had distinct Rossinian flair’ Margaret Davies, Musical Opinion ‘Talevi directed, as well as designing the set and lighting… an ideal setting for the opera’s farcical denouement’ Owen Mortimer, Opera Now
LA VOIX HUMAINEAlessandro Talevi’s production was simple and effective. The austerity of his design spoke of the loneliness of the protagonist, while changes in lighting from warm orange to cool blue created atmosphere and drew the audience into her mental space’. Oliver Jones, Opera Now |