It was a meaty program. But both singers had the chops for it.
It was a gloomy, chilly, rainy day in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, a perfect reflection of the sad and gloomy fates of the title characters in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s presentation of The Three Queens.
Sondra Radvanovsky in a “Three Queens” concert and The Queen of Spades, plus three cycles of the Ring (senza Sondra) highlight Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2019-2020 season.
Sondra Radvanovsky changed my opinion of her through a single performance—I’ll never think of her the same way again; the power of her singing overwhelmed my previous impressions.
Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
“Due to Anna Netrebko’s recent decision not to add the title role in Bellini’s Norma to her repertory…”
This season’s Met Donizetti Tudor Trilogy concluded with Roberto Devereux, given its penultimate performance by HD transmission Saturday, April 16. It is good to see these works finally given here; they are too important, too crucial a part of the operatic repertory to have been ignored for as long as they have.
Friday’s season premiere at the Met of Donizetti’s opera about the doomed Scottish queen proved surprisingly satisfying and a genuine success for Sondra Radvanovsky.