‘Wunder’ of wonders
Opera Vlaanderen opened its 2017-18 season with a rare staging of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane.
Giacomo Puccini
110 pieces since 2008.
110
pieces
19
years
Back to the beach
Were La Rondine an IQ test, I’d be in trouble.
You give me fever
Mortality is ugly—it smells, it makes uncomfortable noises, it takes its time; and then there is the overwhelming sense of dread and helplessness.
All night long
In one important respect, a great production of Puccini resembles a great production of Wagner.
Gone girl
Anna Netrebko‘s Manon was deeply unforgettable for its wide scope, control, and incredible virtuosity.
Stage beauty
>What does a great opera production do, and what does a bad production fail to do?
Geopolitics Italian style
How Verdi’s opera might address this particular nightmare was unclear.
Old west side story
While composed within a European style, La Fanciulla del West is an opera that manages to present a distinctly American experience.
Snow business
Los Angeles saw the first U.S. performance of Giacomo Puccini’s snow-dusted weeper in 1897 just a year after the young Toscanini led the prima in Turin.
Live and empoisoned
In how many operas does the heroine drink poison and then go lengthily mad?
She never sings anything twice
Can it all be true? She did what? He said what?
To live and die (with honor) in L.A.
Los Angeles first saw Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly presented at the Mason Opera House downtown in 1908 by the English Grand Opera Company. Rumors that LA Opera Artistic Director Placido Domingo portrayed Cio-Cio San’s little boy in that production remain unsubstantiated.
Dark vittoria
There is a self-effacing quality to Jonas Kaufmann’s concert film An Evening with Puccini.
Out of the passerine
Here’s a lesser piece by a great composer, single-handedly “rescued” for our generation by Angela Gheorghiu.
Embroidered silk
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Gli enigmi sono due
Giacomo Puccini’s final opus interruptus is and shall always remain my favorite opera. The reasons for this preference are so varied and numerous that if they were printed and bound the volume would most assuredly require its own stand.
The unanswered question
Would exciting American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke be the next great ice-princess we have been waiting for?
A beautiful vision
“She sounds the note of deep pathos in both action and song convincingly, and last night won the tribute of tears from many eyes.”
Bohemian
No surprises this week: back to normal with what is perhaps the world’s most favorite opera: Puccini’s La bohème.
Pazzo son, guardate!
Manon Lescaut was Giacomo Puccini’s first big international success. His publisher, Giulio Ricordi, tried to put him off the project by citing Jules Massenet’s very successful adaptation just nine years previously. Puccini was intent on making the story his own, insisting, “A woman like Manon can have more than one lover… I shall feel it […]
Panning for gold
Giacomo Puccini’s horse-opera version of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” La Fanciulla del West, based on David Belasco’s play, The Girl of the Golden West, enjoyed the status of a curate’s egg for quite a while.
Magda Olivero 1910-2014
The legendary Italian soprano Magda Olivero has died.
Habit, forming
I’ve always had a fondness for Giacomo Puccini’s Suor Angelica and apparently so did he since he often referred to it as, “among the finest of my children.”
Disoriented
What we go to Grattacielo for is fresh young voices singing their guts out.