By the time the curtain rose on Verdi’s Luisa Miller last Sunday in Washington Concert Opera’s final show of the season, the originally announced line-up was about as accurate as a federal agency org chart from February.
When asked to express some “thoughts” here about Verdi’s Il trovatore, my immediate thought was “hmm… not a lot to think about there.”
I’ve argued with myself for many years as to which was my favorite opera by Giuseppe Verdi, La forza del destino or Don Carlos. The latter finally won out especially after studying it in depth, but in the long run, it is the music of Forza that I love the most.
The beautiful singing here is less in the sound than in the way the voice moves.
Now we find Mariella Devia, a diva held in near mythic regard due to her vocal longevity, with competing videos of two of her performances that were released, literally, on the same day.
In how many operas does the heroine drink poison and then go lengthily mad?
By the time Roberto Devereux saw its premiere at Napoli’s Teatro San Carlo on 29 October, 1837, Gaetano Donizetti had lost, in an 18-month time frame, both his parents, two still-born children, and his beloved wife Virginia.
Name a Verdi opera, based on a play by Voltaire, described in the immortal words of the composer as “Questo e proprio brutto.”
Somewhere around the early 80’s, stage directors realized that the odious theatre practice of “audience involvement” was over.
One of my adolescent pastimes was trolling the classical cut-out bins in record stores searching for overlooked gems or unfamiliar singers.
It’s no easy easy task to “re-review” one of the most discussed and scrutinized opera productions of the last few years. Mary Zimmerman’s mise-en-scène of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor has been extensively examined since it was chosen to inaugurate the 2007/08 season of the Metropolitan Opera, provoking very mixed reactions both from the professional critics…
Guest critic Niel Rishoi reviews the VAI DVD release of Lucia di Lammermoor. OK, this is IT. Barring the cuts, this is the Lucia of Gaetano Donizetti. Not that misguided travesty at the Met, not Natalie Dessay‘s vocally juddery overwoughtness. No schtick, no Carol Burnetting around. Just Donizetti and Cammarano’s Romantic drama, pure and simple.…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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