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La Scena Online is the digital magazine of La Scene Musicale.Contents: News, Concert reviews, CD reviews, Interviews, Obituaries, etc; Editor: Wah Keung Chan; Assistant Editor: Andreanne Venne
ISSN: 1206-9973

Scene from Bayreuth Festival's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

Review | Meistersinger, The Musical at Bayreuth Festival

By Gianmarco Segato on 2 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera, Vocal

With Matthias Davids’ new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (seen Aug. 22), the Bayreuth Festival seemed determined to offer something that was the polar opposite of its last two stagings of Wagner’s comedy. Festival artistic director Katharina Wagner’s 2007 concept, and its 2017 successor by Barrie Kosky both deconstructed the work, referencing its co-opting by the Nazis, and the anti-Semitic underpinnings of characters like Beckmesser. Davids, who is artistic director of musicals at Austria’s Landestheater Linz, has underlined his intention to emphasize the comedy in Wagner’s opera. But in doing so, the production barely penetrates beyond the level of…

Quartet HANA at Banff International String Quartet Competition. Photo: Rita Taylor, Courtesy of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Review | New Kati Agócs commission at Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC)

By Bill Rankin on 30 August 2025 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Music Competition, Strings, West

The nine quartets competing for more than $500,000 worth of cash and career development support at the 15th Banff International String Quartet Competition were all asked on Friday morning (Aug. 29) to perform Kati Agócs’ new nine-minute string quartet, Rapprochement, her third piece in the genre. All nine had had an opportunity to discuss their interpretations of the new work during the competition week with the composer. They received her score in May. Agócs writes in her performance notes for the score: “Slurs, dynamic shaping, and articulative markings are suggested only. They are meant as a starting point and can…

Cong Quartet at the Banff International String Quartet Competition (2025). Photo: Rita Taylor/Courtesy of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Review | Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC) Goes Romantic

By Bill Rankin on 29 August 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Music Competition, Strings, West

The Romantic round of the 15th Banff International String Quartet Competition finished Thursday morning (Aug. 28) and figuring which three groups will make it to Sunday’s final has gotten harder to predict. It’s rarely easy. There were a couple of standout performances of a Haydn quartet in the first round. Quartet KAIRI and Quatuor Elmire, I thought put themselves in contention for the $4,000 Haydn prize, at least, and didn’t hurt their chances of playing for the three big prizes. Both also gave distinguished performances of their chosen Mendelssohn quartets for round two: Quartet No. 2, Op 13 in KAIRI’s…

Lebrecht Weekly | Arirang (Orchid)

By Norman Lebrecht on 29 August 2025 Lebrecht Weekly

Sitting in the dental hygienist’s chair, my ears slathered with Classic FM, I cried out for something like this richly varied album where one composer was born in 1656 and another in 1996. I kept thinking as the polisher whirred that there must be a seat in hell for a DJ who programs Stanley Myers’ guitar Cavatina from The Deer Hunter alongside Beethoven’s phone-ring Für Elise. (If there isn’t, I’ll endow one.) Arirang opens with a solo cello piece by Marin Marais (1656-1928) and follows with another by Caroline Shaw (born 1982). The three sections of Ernest Bloch’s suite From…

Louisa Staples & Johannes Brzoska of Viatores Quartet at the Banff International String Quartet Competition (2025). Photo: Rita Taylor/Courtesy of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Review | Banff International String Quartet Competition opens with Haydn & the 21st-century

By Bill Rankin on 28 August 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Music Competition, Strings

The 15th triennial Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC) began on Aug. 25 at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in the Canadian Rockies, west of Calgary. Nine string quartets (a tenth, Montreal-based group withdrew after being invited) are competing for cash prizes as well as a three-year career development program valued at a half a million dollars. Each quartet plays four rounds of various repertoire, some prescribed and some they curate, for a jury of seven distinguished string players, including Toronto Symphony concertmaster and founding member of the New Orford String Quartet, Jonathan Crow. Three quartets will be…

Catherine Foster (Brünnhilde) in Bayreuth Festival's Siegfried. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

Review │ A problematic Ring receives its final Bayreuth Festival outing

By Gianmarco Segato on 28 August 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera, Vocal

Valentin Schwarz’s production of Wagner’s Ring had its final outing at this year’s Bayreuth Festival with two complete cycles, the second of which I saw from Aug. 15-20. Its journey began in 2022 and as is the festival’s tradition, it was revived over a consecutive four-year period. Without a doubt, this was one of the more notorious Bayreuth stagings in recent years, greeted with a sea of booing at its inaugural showing. This year, the reception was less vociferous, yet it continues to be divisive. A Family Affair Schwarz excises most of the magic we associate with Wagner’s tales of…

Anastasia Bartoli (Zelmira) and Enea Scala (Antenore) in Zelmira at the Rossini Opera Festival (2025).

Review: Zombie Zelmira & Canuck Cambiale at Rossini Opera Festival

By Ossama el Naggar on 25 August 2025 Concert Reviews, Opera, Vocal

Established in 1980, the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) is not only one of the most popular musical events in Italy, but also, in all of Europe. In collaboration with the publishing house Casa Ricordi (founded in 1808), its aim is to celebrate the neglected works of its native son Gioachino Rossini in critical editions by musicologists such as Philip Gossett and Alberto Zedda. Thanks to the ROF and the many singers who’ve historically championed Rossini, including Marilyn Horne, Montserrat Caballé, Mariella Devìa, Samuel Ramey, Ruggero Raimondi and Juan Diego Flórez, many of the great composer’s more neglected works have been…

Lebrecht Weekly | Pierre Boulez/Alfred Schnittke: Piano works

By Norman Lebrecht on 22 August 2025 Lebrecht Weekly, Piano

It’s a mark of how far Naxos have come under new ownership that a label which once churned out the complete waltzes of Johann Strauss now gives us piano works by the ultra-serious Pierre Boulez. Also under changed management, the Swedish label BIS continues its three-decade exploration of the Russian outcast, Alfred Schnittke. The results are mixed. Two early Boulez piano works date from 1945 when he was in his second college year are consistently curious, if not at all radical. Theme and Variations for the Left Hand, though technically serial, is both playful and easily playable. Boulez’s teacher at…

Scene from Bayreuth Festival's Parsifal. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

Review | Alienating AR in Bayreuth Festival’s Parsifal

By Gianmarco Segato on 21 August 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera, Vocal

American theatre director Jay Scheib’s 2023 production of Wagner’s Parsifal received its third revival at this summer’s Bayreuth Festival (seen Aug. 17). It originally made headlines for its extensive use of AR, the pluses and minuses of which I evaluated when I saw it at last year’s festival. In this regard, not much has changed this year given the strictures of the technology. Anecdotally, it seemed even less audience members elected to wear the somewhat heavy, and hot, AR glasses. I spoke with several people who tried using them in past years, and found it too uncomfortable, especially in typically…

A scene from La vedova allegra at the Macerata Opera Festival (2025). Photo: Luna Simoncini

Review | Macerata Opera Festival 2025: Dancing Macbeth, Mafia Rigoletto & Lehár

By Ossama el Naggar on 19 August 2025 Concert Reviews, Opera, Vocal

Unlike the Roman Arena di Verona, Macerata’s 2,500 seat Arena Sferisterio is a more recent creation. Created two centuries ago for an Italian variant of handball, it hosted its first opera, Verdi’s Aida, in 1921, but opera did not regularly appear there until the 1960s. In 1992, an official Macerata Opera Festival was established. It takes place in late July/early August and features three to four operas. Opera aficionados flock to this festival in coordination with Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival that begins after Macerata’s, or with the Arena di Verona’s season, which extends from mid-June to early September. This season,…

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