By Mark Swed [LA Times, 15 February 2006]
New evidence that the opera world is fickle is about as shocking as a revelation that politicians lie or that divas hate (or at least used to hate) to diet. Still, topsy-turvy is news, and topsy-turvy opera is.
Wasn’t it just yesterday that San Francisco Opera went from brain dead and irrelevant to brainy and meaningful, that Los Angeles Opera was ready to sample every wonderful new flavor under the sun (and invent a few of its own), that Chicago Lyric Opera put America first and that the Metropolitan Opera was a big, fat, plush red velvet 19th century cocoon where the rich could beam at a chandelier that goes up and down, ooh and ah over sets that looked like living rooms even they couldn’t afford, and dine elegantly in the Met restaurant no longer named for disgraced former donor Alberto Vilar?
Click here for remainder of article.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/Met_Opera.jpg
image_description=The Metropolitan Opera
LA Times: A sense of adventure lost. And found.
By Mark Swed [LA Times, 15 February 2006]
New evidence that the opera world is fickle is about as shocking as a revelation that politicians lie or that divas hate (or at least used to hate) to diet. Still, topsy-turvy is news, and topsy-turvy opera is.
Wasn’t it just yesterday that San Francisco Opera went from brain dead and irrelevant to brainy and meaningful, that Los Angeles Opera was ready to sample every wonderful new flavor under the sun (and invent a few of its own), that Chicago Lyric Opera put America first and that the Metropolitan Opera was a big, fat, plush red velvet 19th century cocoon where the rich could beam at a chandelier that goes up and down, ooh and ah over sets that looked like living rooms even they couldn’t afford, and dine elegantly in the Met restaurant no longer named for disgraced former donor Alberto Vilar?
Click here for remainder of article.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/Met_Opera.jpg
image_description=The Metropolitan Opera