Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s only opera for Rome was written to an existing libretto by the great Pietro Metastasio, L’Olimpiade, which had already been set by Vivaldi the year previously.
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…
Halfway through the overture to L’italiana in Algeri a pin-up cartoon of our Isabella, Jennifer Larmore, slowly slides up and down a pole, setting the tone for the whole opera. Cartoonish is indeed the first adjective that springs to my mind when trying to describe this 1998 production of Rossini’s opera buffa from the Opéra…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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