Willy Decker’s Traviata has garnered praise from critics and audiences alike in the week since its Metropolitan premiere, but (as was to be expected) this praise comes over the complaints of a select few traditionalists, a handful of lonely boos amid the mostly enthusiastic applause. Their objection (as usual) is that Decker’s production betrays the…
La Cieca’s spy wriggled into last night’s Met dress rehearsal of La traviata and reports: “One has to be careful about making too many judgments or drawing too many conclusions from a rehearsal, but last night’s final dress was indeed very promising.”
As we look forward to New Year’s Eve and to the gala opening of Willy Decker’s La Traviata at the Met, it seems fitting to look back—by way of the official, live, DVD recording of the production’s sensational world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2005—to get some sense of what’s behind all the hype.…
Chandos has issued an excellent new CD of Serge Rachmaninoff‘s one-act opera Aleko, written when the composer was only nineteen as a graduation exercise for the Moscow Conservatory.
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