Festive Concert with Jessye Norman

It was more the ruins than the remnants of a once-great voice that Jessye Norman brought to Israel’s new, 6500-seat outdoor opera theater at the foot of historic Masada Mountain.

Nabucco at Masada

Israel Opera Nabucco includes three Va pensiero’s It’s apocrypha, of course, but legend has it that since its 1843 premiere at La Scala audiences have wanted an encore of the chorus Va pensiero when Verdi’s Nabucco is on stage.

Armida, Garsington Opera

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/7811652/Armida-Garsington-Opera-review.html

A Dog’s Heart, Het Muziektheatre, Amsterdam

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8ab066ec-7313-11df-ae73-00144feabdc0.html

Mary Stuart, Grand Theatre, Leeds

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7498707a-7313-11df-ae73-00144feabdc0.html

Faust in San Francisco

Faust has long since left the French repertory to enter the international repertory, meaning that, like Disneyland, it has been absorbed into diverse cultures where it discovers new resonances.

Le Nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera House

Detailed and precise, but never fussy, David McVicar’s thought-provoking production of Le Nozze di Figaro is ‘busy’ from the opening rushing semi-quavers of the overture.

I Gioielli della Madonna, New York

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, son of an Italian mother and a German father, was born
in Venice but acclaimed only when he took his operas to Germany, where he
became quite popular during the first decades of the twentieth century.

Bliss, Tosca and La Sonnambula at Opera Australia

Opera Australia regularly commission new work. Usually serious subjects
drawn from notable Australian literature or dealing with an event or hero from
Australian history.

La Damnation de Faust in Modern Guise at Lyric Opera of Chicago

During its recently concluded season Lyric Opera of Chicago presented two
musical pieces based on the theme of “Faust.”