ROHM to inaugurate legendary season

The Royal Opera House Muscat (ROHM) will inaugurate a new 2017-2018 season; the Legendary Season, starting from September till May 2018. In anticipating a wonderful programme for the seventh year of the Royal Opera House Muscat, with 35 outstanding new programmes and 55 performances, ROHM unveiled an inspiring theme for the 2017-2018 season: A Legendary Season. Not only does ROHM new season offer an abundance of performers with legendary reputations, but also it is set to further brand the Royal Opera House Muscat as a legendary place where the dreams of civilisations are realized. The diverse programming spans cultures across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, opening a myriad of windows on the world while inviting the world to discover Oman’s distinctive cultural traditions, its talent and its contemporary achievements. The ROHM’s new Season features some of the greatest opera singers in the world who will give dazzling performances in gala concerts, as well as in five famous operas. The roster of Artists that ROHM will present in the new Season is an incredible concentration of world-famous stars that may be for the first time ever on the same stage in any given season. In a special tribute to the tenor voice, ROHM will host such tenors as Roberto Alagna, Jose Cura, Gregory Kunde, Marcelo Alvarez and Fabio Armiliato who will perform in a crossover repertoire with great originality and flamboyant histrionism. ROHM’s stage will also host internationally acclaimed women stars, such as Olga Peretyatko, Aleksandra Kurzak, Rosa Feola, Kristin Lewis, Anita Rachvelishvili and many others. This will be the Season of big voices, a unique and unforgettable season”. ROHM’s 2017-18 operas include three great romantic and tragic works that take audiences into the deeper realms of the human spirit — Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, Rug-gero Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci (Clowns); and two delightful operas that give audiences incredible joy Gioachino Rossini’s L’Occasione fa il Ladro (Opportunity Makes a Thief) and Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker). The common thread in combining staging of different Directors is the idea that inspired the choice of these titles and the reason why one can call it Legendary: ROHM will present the best selections of both classic and modern works, which have made history and will represent the future of opera. The impressive opera, Aida, which on September 14th will inaugurate the 2017-2018 season, will be directed by William Friedkin, who is very well-known for his career in cinema. Another famous director, Jean–Pierre Ponnelle will present his historical and memorable L’Occasione fa il Ladro; and Hugo De Ana brings one of the most beautiful productions of La Sonnam-bula ever staged. Frederic Roels presents a new production of Norma; and last, but not least, Franco Zeffirelli, the most famous of all, will come back to ROHM with another astonishing masterwork, Pagliacci which means Clowns. ROHM pays tribute to Pavarotti in a gala concert with four amazing stars who are in demand on the world’s best stages — Fiorenza Cedolins, Sumi Jo, Marcello Giordani, and Francesco Meli. Some among these four leading opera singers studied and shared personal life experiences with Pavarotti while others performed with him. And they all share a deep admiration for the great man’s nobility of spirit and his wonderful humanity. One of the operas the Royal Opera House Muscat will present this coming season is another international co-production. This is another very important step as ROHM continues its journey along a transformational road to becoming a theatre that creates its own productions, in addition to hosting productions from abroad. In partnership with the excellent Opéra de Rouen from France, ROHM is producing Vincenzo Bellini’s great belcanto masterpiece, Norma, a lyrical tragedy about a Druid priestess whose ill-fated love for an unfaithful Roman conqueror has powerful consequences”. Swan Lake will be performed in the gorgeous classical style by Astana Opera and the world-class Orchestra of Teatro Carlo Felice of Genoa conducted by Giuseppe Acquaviva”. ROHM audiences naturally love classical ballet; and they also appreciate modern ballet. This season ROHM is presenting Cinderella as avant-garde ballet performed by Opera de Lyon. With brilliant choreography and staging by Maguy Marin, the ballet is set in a doll’s house and the dancers are characterized accordingly. Sergei Prokofiev’s amazing music is played by the PKF — Prague Phiharmonia, an orchestra that is greatly loved by ROHM patrons. ROHM will also present a Concert-Ballet, with the intriguing title, Pas de Deux for Fingers and Toes. Violinist, Vadim Repin, often reputed to be the “best and most perfect violinist” and the Étoile or Star of La Scala, Svetlana Zakharova, bring music and movement together in a supreme expression of beauty. To top it off, ROHM will have a night of Traditional dances by of one the world’s greatest folkdance companies — the Russian Igor Moiseyev Ballet, which is renowned for technical brilliance and exuberant virtuosity”. Other two of ROHM proposals are Recital CanTango a World Music performance and A O, Original Vietnamese Show. ROHM is continuing its custom of presenting a popular musical each season — and this time it is none other than Peter Pan in an award-winning new production for people of all ages. It’s action-packed and exciting, with all the beloved characters — flying in the air to original music arrangements by the famous pop singer, Edoardo Bennato”. Roberto Alagna, one of the most celebrated tenors in the world, returns to ROHM — with the internationally acclaimed Polish soprano, Aleksandra Kurzak who also performs on some of the world’s most prestigious stages”. The new Season also features a living jazz legend, Dianne Reeves. She has been hailed by The New York Times as “the most admired jazz diva since Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday”. Dianne Reeves has won no less than five Grammy Awards. Platinum award-winning singer and songwriter, Ann Hampton Callaway will sing some of Barbara Streisand’s timeless classics, such as “Cry me a River” and “The Way We Were”. — ONA