Next month in Bergamo Plácido Domingo takes on his zillionth—and possibly final—new role, so Trove Thursday previews it by returning to the same venue 50 years earlier for Donizetti’s Belisario with Leyla Gencer and Renato Bruson, a real baritone as its titular hero.
parterre saturday afternoon presents Leyla Gencer in an opera she really should have done far more often, Verdi’s Macbeth.
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.
Oddly enough, Eva Marton‘s interpretation of the Kostelnicka (pictured) goes unmentioned in Issue #38.
La Cieca is sort of out of words trying to describe what makes a great performance of the role of Norma, as opposed to the conscientious traversal of the notes.