# My 2015 opera awards



## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

No lists, no runners up, only the winners will get a mention in this collection of arbitrary and spurious awards, mostly stemming from my rather over-budget jaunts around Europe.

Please add your own, but the rule of the thread is your winners only. Feel free to invent award categories. I'm aware that I haven't included CDs and DVDs but please do add your winners too.

*Greatest pleasure: Meeting up with sospiro and dongiovanni in Amsterdam*
They didn't pay me to say this. We had a swell time.

*Favourite city: Budapest*
I've seen 8 operas there this year and have even picked some words in their difficult but attractive language!

*Opera night: Mefistofele in Budapest*
Grand and full bodied, the way it should be.

*Rediscovery: Jewels of the Madonna, by Wolf-Ferrari*
Engrossing. Big budget production in Bratislava showed that this verismo work needs to be seen more.

*New Production: Manon in Vilnius*
The staging was a visual delight, the way opera is meant to be. Artistic, colourful, light, shadows, reflections. Co-production with SFO but not yet scheduled.

*New opera: Penthesilia by Pascal Dusapin*
Premier in Brussels. Modern but not too difficult considering the array of screeching sopranos. Attractive production. Good enough to get an outing in other houses in Europe. I'd go again.

*Strangest opera(s): L'Heure Espanole/Mammelles des Tiresius*
Vienna Kammeroper. 2 works mashed together in the style of Michael Frayn's farce 'Noises Off'. Wildly entertaining.

*Vocal Performance: Csilla Boross*
As Elisabeth in Don Carlos, Budapest. Faultless and beautiful.

*Small production: Falstaff by Black Cat Opera Company*
They made me believe that Verdi wrote this opera for a small company, 20 piece orchestra and small stage. These guys show great experience and expertise.

*Unlikeliest: Die Walkure in Berwick-Upon-Tweed*
Stripped down concert version in bijou 300 seat theatre.

*Biggest disappointment: Mefistofele in Munich*
What should have been my highlight (a favourite opera, great cast), turned out to be a damp squib. Produced and performed with what I can only call 'indifference' by all concerned, Calleja's singing was a small consolation. This also gets the biggest waste of money award.

*Best trip: Baltic Countries*
3 nights, 3 countries, 3 operas. Tallinn (Cardillac), Riga (Trovatore) and Vilnius (Manon) with buses between. That was fun!


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

What a great idea. Here are mine.

*Best Opera:* Mastersingers of Nuremberg - ENO

*Best Male Singer:* Yonghoon Lee - Turiddu - Cavalleria Rusticana - ROH

*Best Female Singer:* Claudia Boyle - Mabel - Pirates of Penzance - ENO

*Best Performance:* Andrew Shore - Beckmesser - Mastersingers of Nuremberg - ENO

*Best Conductor:* Antonio Pappano - Cavalleria Rusticana - ROH

*Best Chorus* ENO Chorus - Mastersingers of Nuremberg - ENO


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Really outstanding performances this year.

Tenor Michael Fabiano in Poliuto Glyndebourne

Baritone Bozidar Smiljanic Still a student at the Royal Collage of Music but in Janet Sussman’s actor friendly production of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Hackney Empire he was perfectly cast in the title role. I will be amazed if he doesn’t translate this into a great career.

Soprano and overall clear winner in a year of many vocal treats.
Tamara Wilson The Force of destiny ENO. I have been lucky whom I’ve heard live over the years but she lost nothing in comparison with the best. Amazing.

Best Conducting/Orchestra. Tie between Poliuto and The Force of Destiny.

Best Production The Mastersingers. ENO. so good I went twice.
Agreed the Chorus was the best I heard this year.

Bucket List Moment. Glyndebourne. Just go, you wont regret it. 


Biggest disappointment. The Flying Dutchman at ROH. I will concede that a week before my body had been in a time zone that meant the Opera started at what had been midnight, but I stayed awake to the end and felt nothing but severe cramp in my ****!


Greatest Pleasure. Discovering Talk Classical. 
I have been obsessed with music these past 40+ years. Opera has been near the top of the list for 30+, but we stopped attending as frequently when our only child expressed a preference for plays and Films etc. Now she’s “grown up” and doesn’t accompany us so much, we’ve been returning to Opera as our main choice for entertainment. Although we had continued to attend the odd performance I had cancelled the Opera magazine subscription and now find I’ve
- lost track of the upcoming careers. Also when did Cecelia Bartoli become a marmite figure? 15 + years ago she seemed to gather no criticism.
- Had no idea of some of the horrors of Reggie theatre. Not having sat through anything ‘ghastly’ I have had a few laughs at the examples people have referenced this year. This has also meant that I have been slow to recognise why so many reasonable folk on here become so agitated at the whiff of a change, when in truth the truly 'faithful' productions are in the minority.
- and thanks to the many threads on here started buying CD’s again. Now where can I get more time to listen to them all?


Finally I forgive you Don F for not selecting meeting me as your greatest pleasure, as I once overlooked you on a similar thread! Hope you meet you again, plus many others from the forum in 2016.


Happy Christmas everyone.


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

Indeed this is a great idea, only the fun off revisiting all the performances is worth it ! In 2015 I saw 20 opera's live, in 8 cities. It's been a great year, and very memorable for my encounter with Sosprio and Don Fatale.

Here are my awards:

*Best opera performance, all aspects taken into account*
La Forza del Destino, Munich

*Best female performance*
Anna Netrebko, Mimi, London

*Best male performance*
Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Rodrigo, Vienna

*Best female singer, new to me*
Nicole Car (Tatyana, London)

*Best male singer, new to me*
Francesco Meli (Manrico, Amsterdam)

*Best conductor*
Ricardo Chailly, Giovanna d'Arco, Milan

*Biggest surprise*
Platee, Paris Garnier

*Best small production*
Nozze di Figaro, Semi staged, Eindhoven Concert Hall

*Biggest dissapointment*
Eugen Onegin, Munich

*Best Trip*
London and Milan, December

*Best Concert*
Mahler 4, Beethoven concerto 4, Perahia, Haitink, LSO, Barbican

*Worst ******-up of an opera scene by a director*
Don Giovanni, Paris Bastille, Commendatore scene

*Most ridiculous production*
Eugen Onegin, Munich


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

*Best opera trips - in no particular order*

Amsterdam to see Macbeth and meeting Don Fatale and Dongiovanni. Two lovely guys and we had great fun.

Bucharest to see Academy of Ancient Music's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea in the spectacular Romanian Athenaeum.

London to see Falstaff and meeting up with Don Fatale again. Antonio Maestri is Mr. Falstaff and he's a joy to watch.

Vienna for Peter Grimes. My first time at Theater an der Wien and my first time in Vienna. A gem of an opera house and an outstanding production.

*Opera I'd never heard of before*

Donizetti's L'assedio di Calais performed by English Touring Opera at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre. I saw Don Pasquale by ETO a few years ago and was disappointed it was done in English. However I think ETO perform in original language now and as they often stage a rarity, they're well worth checking out.

*One that the critics slated but which I loved*

Un ballo in maschera at ROH.

*Opera I found most challenging to get to know and like*

Król Roger at ROH


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Standouts from amongst an embarrassment of opera riches this year both in North America and beyond:

*Best female performance*
Angela Gheorghiu (Tosca, Met Opera)

*Best male performance*
Ferruccio Furlanetto (Filippo, Met Opera)

*Best new-to-me singer*
Asmik Grigorian (Cio Cio San, Rome Opera/Caracalla)

*Best overall performance*
_Don Carlo_ at the Met

*Best orchestra*
La Scala Philharmonic's masterful Rossini in _Otello_

*Best new production*
La Scala's _Otello_ (Rossini)

*Most disappointing new production*
The Met's gloomy new _Cavalleria Rusticana_, partially offset by the glitzy new Pag.

*Best summer festival performance*
Arena di Verona, _Nabucco_

*Best Small Company Production *
Carmen at St. Petersburg Opera (Florida, USA not Russia). Superb singers; detailed and faithful stage direction, sets, and costumes; accomplished music direction with full orchestra, supportive and enthusiastic regional audience.

*Pleasant surprise*
The palpable chemistry between Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo in the Met's _Manon_.

*Guilty pleasure*
Zeffirelli's gilded _Turandot_ at the Met

*Strange and Challenging*
_Written on Skin_ at the Mostly Mozart Festival


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