“Trove Thursday” offers due local Lombardi: one with Renata Scotto and José Carreras, the other with Aprile Millo and Carlo Bergonzi.
How do we celebrate a long career in opera, particularly one as illustrious as Plácido Domingo‘s?
I hardly know where to heap my praise first.
Beautiful singing, thoughtful staging, lovely melodies… a perfect escape from daily life.
For this revisiting of Tosca, San Francisco Opera decided to highlight the glamorous lifestyle of the Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio.
For opening night of the new LA Opera season Placido Domingo decided to return to one of his best Verdi showcases, Don Carlo, only this time as the baritone, Rodrigo the Marquis di Posa, instead of the title character.
Lightning struck again here when, after a wait of 39 years, San Francisco Opera unveiled a new production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux.
San Francisco Opera opened their 2018-19 Season Friday with a double bill of Italian verismo operas, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, which made a welcome return to War Memorial Opera House after 15 years.
Sunday, August 26, marked the inaugural performance for the newly-created The Claude Heater Foundation with a concert performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in the Herbst Theatre.
The Lamplighters Music Theatre opened their 66th season in SF last Saturday with triumphant performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
Last weekend marked the opening night for West Edge Opera: Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
This year’s Salzburg Festival opens Saturday with a new production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, an opera often performed elsewhere in translation, so “Trove Thursday” offers two for the price (!) of one.
As Brünnhilde invokes the gods of an empty Valhalla for one last time and strides confidently into a wall of flame, we pause for a moment, unsure of what will follow.
Siegfried is, in a sense, The Ring’s odd one out.
If Das Rheingold is an opera about infinitude, the illusory idea that the world is large enough to satisfy all of our desires, passions, and lusts, Die Walküre is an opera about scarcity.
I mean, how often does one get to hear Bernstein’s gorgeous, rollicking, and varied score nursed by a full orchestra and the artistic resources of an opera company?
I have a confession to make. I have been taking Rigoletto for granted.
The Verdi Chorus celebrated their 35th anniversary with their spring concert weekend entitled The Force of Destiny last Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
Next week the Italian soprano Mariella Devia celebrates her 70th birthday so “Trove Thursday” salutes her with one of her earliest New York successes: Delibes’s Lakmé
“Trove Thursday” presents a live Tristan 2 concert featuring one of my favorite dramatic sopranos. Gertrude Grob-Prandl.
Neumeier adapted the story close to home, making Orpheus a choreographer and his wife a star ballerina.
“Trove Thursday” presents Falla’s La Vida Breve in a live concert version with Victoria de los Angeles, one of Spain’s greatest singers, as Salud.
“Trove Thursday” offers Così fan tutte with Pilar Lorengar, Josephine Veasey, Lucia Popp, Luigi Alva and Kieth Engen with Georg Solti conducting.
In recent years, Opera Paralléle has established a reputation for creative programming of contemporary opera in San Francisco. Persuaded both by the promise of an unusual Bernstein-Heggie double bill, and the unusual venue of SF Jazz’s Miner Auditorium, I had the pleasure of attending an excellent production this past week.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.