Opera Philadelphia’s Il viaggio a Reims in a nutshell: Hyperactive, confusing, and distracting from (and sometimes for) the singers? Yes. Imaginative, wildly entertaining, and musically rewarding? Absolutely.
All things were, indeed, made new again, when Boston’s venerable Handel & Haydn Society brought Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro to the stage, their first time doing so in its entirety, as their 2,576th concert on Thursday.
Der Rosenkavalier (on Blu-ray and DVD) is from the Met HD broadcast which also happened to be the final performance of the run, becoming a true souvenir of the farewells of its two leading ladies.
Riccardo Zandoni’s Il Grillo del Focolare is an opera after all.
If everything you see is great, you are either new to opera or chronically easy to please.
Any production of Der Rosenkavalier that can transform the usually excruciating first half of the third act into a hilarious romp already has my vote.
“What fools these mortals be!”
The big news out of the Bay this week, of course, is that David Gockley, after ten years at the helm here and over forty in opera, has decided not to pull a Bloomberg/Galupe-Borszkh.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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