Let me live by my wits and Trost to my luck
I finally get to complete my personal operatic Top Ten this week with Igor Stravinsky’s only full-length opera, The Rake’s Progress.
Ellie Dehn
8 pieces since 2012 — in 6 roles, at 4 companies, most often at San Francisco Opera.
8
pieces
6
roles
4
companies
15
years
Role Anne Truelove
Role Arabella
Coming out
Beautiful singing, thoughtful staging, lovely melodies… a perfect escape from daily life.
Role Catherine of Aragon
L’infelice Aragonese
Camille Saint-Saëns was such a brilliant, facile musician that pals like Wagner and Liszt felt a distinct schadenfreude when he suffered composer’s block.
Role Euryanthe
Tomb raider
Despite the continued popularity of Der Freischütz in German-speaking countries, are the magical mature operas of Carl Maria von Weber otherwise really so problematic, their libretti so unwieldy to explain their continued absence from the world’s stages?
Role Manon
The pleasure of her company
It is not easy for an opera company to follow a spectacular production of La Traviata with Massenet’s Manon.
Role Micaela
Incomplete mountain pass
The big news on Van Ness Avenue, it goes without saying, is Calixto Bieito’s operatic debut on these shores.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).