A.J. Goldmann on the Salzburg Festival’s revolving doors, both in its administration and in its delectable production of Il viaggio a Reims.
In spite of the fact that Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti removed all the magical elements from the story, therefore making it far easier to produce, there was more than enough enchantment in the singing, and intermittently in the production to enjoy.
We’ve had a mini-fest of director Barrie Kosky’s work this year at LA Opera.
Rossini’s Semiramide is a highly original and imaginative work of theater that impresses for its creative and beautifully scored orchestration, incisive recitatives and ensembles, and theatrically intriguing characters.
The dream cast put together for this second revival of Kasper Holten’s Don Giovanni production shines at the Royal Opera House.
This revival of Phyllida Lloyd’s 2002 Macbeth production was probably the most anticipated event of the Royal Opera House 2017/2018 season, due mostly to Anna Netrebko’s return to Covent Garden after a three-year absence.
Edita Gruberova essentially revived and propagated the bel canto repertoire in central Europe, specifically in the German-speaking countries.
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
Good singing and a dramatically potent (if conservative) production were an unbeatable combination in the Metropolitan Opera’s season premiere of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.
“Semiramide—a better opera than this dude expected!”
The characters get right down to work immediately with their foul deeds.
I always think of Don Giovanni as half of the greatest opera ever written. Or, actually, about 2/3 of the greatest opera ever written.
I never thought I’d see the day when Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten would battle it out for musical superiority but that’s exactly what happened in Los Angeles this year.
My mother asked me once, whilst staring aghast at my CD collection, why I needed so many copies of Don Giovanni.
Beethoven expressed it best when he reportedly threw Rossini shade: “Any other other style than opera buffa would do violence to your nature.”
If the Arthaus Musik release of Le nozze di Figaro from La Scala feels like a slouchy revival pulled haphazardly from the video vault, the singers are certainly not at fault. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Diana Damrau, starring as Figaro and Susanna, are bankable stars who live up to the hype. At the podium, Gérard Korsten…
I’ve been a big fan of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena since I first heard it on recording and have always felt that it deserved a definitive recorded performance. Here’s a brief tour of why this hasn’t happened. There’s the Bible, also known as the live Scala relay with Callas and Simionato and musical cuts so egregious…
Deutsche Grammophon has a new hunk on the market, ignoring the fact that he’s been around for twenty years. Ildebrando d’Arcangelo has been steadily building a career since the early 90s, getting a reputation as a reliable, intelligent artist with a supple bass-baritone. He has a lengthy career of singing with the greats under his…
Very few things intrigue me as much as analyzing belcanto operas, comparing their several versions and examining the composers’ second thoughts, modifications and revisions that, willingly or unwillingly, they made to their scores. I was already salivating when I heard that the Teatro Comunale di Bologna was going to perform Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani in…
Among the “auditions” that have come flooding in from the cher public are reviews of three very different productions of Don Giovanni. Your doyenne has taken the liberty of combining the three critiques into a single posting, but she urges you to remember, remember well the names of the authors of this troika of treatises.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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