Press Reviews: Boulevard Solitude

Boulevard Solitude pleases the critics

The national press review the Royal Opera's Boulevard Solitude.

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The Independent

Last week it looked as though Covent Garden was heading for disaster by staging Hans Werner Henze's 1952 opera, Boulevard Solitude.

My, how they must be laughing now. Despite the worst possible pre-publicity, despite accusations of elitism, obscurantism and wastefulness, and despite woeful advance ticket sales, in Nikolaus Lehnhoff's extraordinary, exacting, stimulating production it looks as though they have hit the operatic jackpot: an intelligent production that should appeal to anyone with a broad interest in 20th-century music, cinema, theatre, art or design.

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The opera creates a world that stretches to infinity

The Times

This sort of adult, joined-up show is exactly what the Royal Opera should be doing, all the time, and I recommend it fervently to anyone who believes that opera is more than an agreeable prelude or postlude to a good dinner.

There is absolutely nothing apologetic about the production - no hint of "we're doing a nasty modern opera on the cheap just to salve our consciences". It plainly cost a bomb, by our standards, but wouldn't raise an eyebrow on the Continent. The opera is short, 80 minutes without interval, but it creates a world that stretches to infinity.

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The fatal denouement of Boulevard Solitude

The Telegraph

Boulevard Solitude seems an odd choice for revival. Elegy for Young Lovers is generally considered to be the musically stronger piece, and The Bassarids is certainly more suited to the dimensions of a grand opera house.

Both are works of Henze's maturity, both boast English librettos by WH Auden and Chester Kallman, and both could make fine showcases for British singers, if the Royal Opera ever deigned to show interest in such people.

A largeish audience - bizarrely peppered, if not papered, with B-list celebrities - applauded with genuine enthusiasm.

Whatever its shortcomings, Boulevard Solitude vaut la visite, and even if it doesn't sell out, the Royal Opera is to be congratulated on mounting it with such panache.

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Boulevard Solitude launched Henze's career in 1952

The Guardian

For once the Royal Opera has done something right. It may not yet have succeeded in selling enough tickets for its new production of Boulevard Solitude, prompting tabloid accusations that the company is putting on "difficult" modern opera that no one wants to see.

However, that is a marketing failure rather than a problem of the work or of the staging. Covent Garden has done eloquent justice to the piece that launched Hans Werner Henze's career in 1952 and is now being seen in London for the first time in 39 years.

It is one of his best works, and as a tribute to the composer in the year of his 75th birthday its revival could hardly be more appropriate.