Michael Anthonio
Michael Anthonio's love affairs with classical music and opera started in primary school, when his parents bought him an organ and he began taking lessons. During high school and college, he gave private organ lessons to some of his parents' friends' kids (for pocket money) and he was church organist and later, choir conductor. In 1999 he moved to Singapore where he got involved with the classical music online website "flying inkpot." His interest in opera became an obsession when he was transferred for work to US in 2008. In addition to enjoying world-class opera in SF, he indulges in opera tours in Europe. His favorite opera composer is Handel; at this point, Michael seen 24 of his operas , with hopefully three more coming next year.
“Once upon a time / Lived a foolish king. / Mocking Death, his crime, / Pure chaos he bring.”
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That question hung in the air when Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid revived Tomás Bretón’s opera Farinelli for first time since its premiere in 1902.
In the opera world, one of the pieces that underwent a multitude of changes in its reception was undoubtedly Richard Wagner’s longest and most Germanic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Jakub Józef Orlinski‘s “Stille amare” packed a lot of punch in terms of dramatic intensity.
Bring your family: This show is special! Such perfect opera is hard to find!
The San Francisco Opera, perhaps incidentally, continued their exploration of operas based on literary works by mounting the revival of Giacomo Puccini’s first success, Manon Lescaut.
Opéra Royal revives Grétry’s Richard Cœur-de-lion, one of the finest examples of the opéra comique genre.
How does one make a performance of standard opera repertoire like Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro feel “fresh?”
A sense of celebration was definitely in the air last Thursday at the Vienna State Opera.
The Paris Opera assembled an all-French cast to stage arguably the most well-known example of opéra-ballet, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes.
A brace of Handel operas at the George Enescu International Festival.
From the technical standpoint San Francisco Opera’s Billy Budd was pretty much flawless.
Politics and romance entangled in a spectacular fashion at San Francisco Operas’s Roméo et Juliette.
Saturday August 17 the Merola Opera Program wrapped up its annual Summer Festival with the Merola Grand Finale concert at the War Memorial Opera House.
“Who are you? Who do you want to be?” The search for one’s identity is explored in American composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer’s brand new opera If I Were You.
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” went the introduction to the 1940s radio program The Shadow, an apt description for the San Francisco Opera’s production of Rusalka.
“How far should we give way to grief? How far dare we, without disaster?”
Once again we got a very frustrating performance of Orlando; this time a beautiful and completely coherent production marred by some sub-optimal singing.
Although stripped down, this comedy of manners was far from boring due to well-choreographed movements and actions of the characters.
“Tame” seemed to be the appropriate adjective to describe San Francisco Opera’s Carmen.
There is a deep sense of culmination and finality when we discuss the last works of the great Masters.
In the more than 500 years of the history of operas, rarely (if ever) has a coming of age story, particularly one from the child’s point of view, been presented as the main topic of the opera.
Claus Guth, in a staging of Handel’s Orlando for Theater an der Wien, decided to revisit a PTSD theme.
Legrenzi married the quirky libretto to a score of transcendental beauty.
