“Gli arredi festivi gi˘ cadano infranti, Il popol di Giuda di lutto s’ammanti!”. Verdi’s Nabucco at the Royal Opera House respected the spirit of the opera.
Month: March 2013
Flying Dutchman at LA Opera
The Los Angeles Opera company opened its spring season in celebration of
Richard Wagner’s bicentennial with the composer’s The Flying Dutchman,
written in 1843.
Cruzar la Cara de la Luna
Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon) has been performed in Houston and Paris.
Francesca da Rimini at the Met
Sets and costumes are gorgeous and the singing is good, but the libretto’s slow and continuously interrupted dramatic action grows tiresome
Gˆtterd‰mmerung at the Staatsoper Berlin
In the final of scene of Gˆtterd‰mmerung in a new production at
the Staatsoper Berlin, Br¸nnhilde appears in a flowing pink gown just as the
music has modulated and penetrates the hall of the Gibichungs, represented by
rows of glowing translucent boxes that preserve the dismembered limbs of their
victims.
Robert Carsen’s Falstaff, Paris
With Robert Carsen’s production of Falstaff almost inescapably
making the rounds of the world’s operatic stages, it is well worth it to take
in another production altogether.
Cenerentola at Paris OpÈra
Rossini’s “other” comic masterpiece of 1817 came into the world only a few weeks after the much better known The Barber of Seville. But it has had a place in the repertoire since its premiere.
Wagner’s Die Meistersinger in Chicago
Productions of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von N¸rnberg are ambitious undertakings, if only for the number of performers involved and the duration of orchestral and vocal commitment.
The Verdi Requiem in Naples
San Francisco and Naples have much in common these days — streets with potholes, ever more gourmet pizzerias, homeless, etc., and, yes, Nicola Luisotti.