Mind-blowing productions of Strauss’ Elektra staged by Krzysztof Warlikowski and Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960 staged by Jan Lauwers. [Lead photo is a detail of the back wall of Elektra covered…
Author: Michael Milenski
Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro 2021
Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le passage de la mer rouge is Rossini’s adaptation of his Neapolitan Mosè in Egitto for the Paris Opéra. This revision may be the epitome of…
The Golden Cockerel at the Aix Festival
It was Rimsky Korsakov’s last opera, his 1907 masterpiece Le Coq d’Or in one fell swoop (no intermission). In Aix Pushkin’s poetic Tzar Dodon met his fate, his head smashed,…
Apocalypse and Combat in Aix
Pierre Audi’s 2021 Aix Festival included two small pieces that continue the Festival’s operatic exploration of the larger Mediterranean world, meanwhile connecting the Festival’s general director to his Lebanese roots.…
Le nozze di Figaro at the Aix Festival
Mozart meets hysteria in this new staging of his masterpiece by Dutch metteur en scène Lotte de Beer, to the quick and just baton of conductor Thomas Hengelbrock and his Balthaser…
Innocence at the Aix Festival
This was the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s new opera that will come soon to Helsinki, Amsterdam, London, New New York and San Francisco, its co-commissioners. Finland born composer Saariaho…
Tristan und Isolde at the Aix Festival
Soprano Nina Stemme, tenor Stuart Skelton, bass Franz-Josef Selig and conductor Simon Rattle create a Tristan of transcendent music in a revelatory staging by Simon Stone. The London Symphony Orchestra…
Falstaff at the Aix Festival
It was inevitable. If stage director Barrie Kosky famously ravaged Wagner’s only comedy at Bayreuth, then he must do the same to Verdi’s only comedy. It happened just now in…
The Barber of Seville by San Francisco Opera
San Francisco has fielded, masterfully, a giganticized miniaturized version of Gioachino Rossini’s iconic masterwork Il barbiere di Siviglia in a parking lot for hundreds of socially distanced cars. It is…
The Twilight of Dreams in Palermo
Il crepuscolo dei sogni burst out of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo last Tuesday thanks to YouTube streaming. The link to the resulting video is below.