What sort of production would be optimal for an opera that with more style than content?
Author: James Sohre
Verdi’s Falstaff at The Metropolitan Opera, 1992
A Franco Zeffirelli production for The Metropolitan Opera typically prompts the use of adjectives such as “grandiose,” or “gorgeous” on the positive end or “gaudy” and “gratuitous” on the negative.
Bellini’s Norma at Gran Teatre del Liceu
Some fortunate operas have any number of fine live versions available on DVD.
Wagner’s Gˆtterd‰mmerung and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten
Chaos and disorder rule at Los Angeles Opera of late, and not just in the fervid imagination of director Achim Freyer, the artistic force behind the controversial staging of Richard Wagner’s four-evening glorification of chaos and disorder.
Aaron Copland’s score for The City
This disc neatly captures a central dichotomy of the career of composer Aaron Copland.
Tosca at Torre del Lago, 2007
Opera festival DVDs often seem to be produced as tempting advertisements meant to induce viewers to consider a trip to that festival for the next season.
Eva Marton in Puccini and Strauss
At one point in her career, Eva Marton appeared poised to be the true inheritor of Birgit Nilsson’s legacy roles: Wagner and Strauss’s most dramatic heroines, as well as key Italian roles (Puccini in particular).
Puccini: La Rondine
Throughout his relatively long and decidedly successful career, Giacomo Puccini returned to those operas of his that had not, immediately or eventually, secured an important place in the standard repertory.
Rossini: La Cenerentola
Michael Hampe seems to have been the director of choice in the 1980s for tastefully traditional Rossini productions.
Central City: the little opera company that can
You don’t have to be Asian to sing Madama Butterfly, but if you’ve got a top soprano from that part of the world, it adds another dimension of reality to Puccini’s tear-drenched verismo.