Back to the operatic days when the book took top billing and the composer’s name was in the fine print. Collodi’s tale is an epic journey wrapped in sophisticated innocence that leaves you probably more disgusted than anything else — Collodi’s Pinocchio is not a charming child.
Author: Michael Milenski
Don Carlo in Marseille
First mounted in 2015 at the OpÈra National de Bordeaux this splendid Don Carlo production took stage just now at the OpÈra de Marseille with a completely different cast and conductor. This Marseille edition achieved an artistic stature rarely found hereabouts, or anywhere.
La BohËme in San Francisco
In 2008 it was the electrifying conducting of Nicola Luisotti and the famed MimÏ of Angela Gheorghiu, in 2014 it was the riveting portrayals of Michael Fabbiano’s Rodolfo and Alexey Markov’s Marcelo. Now, in 2017, it is the high Italian style of Erika Grimaldi’s MimÏ — and just about everything else!
Don Giovanni in San Francisco
San Francisco Opera revved up its 2011 production of Don Giovanni with a new directorial team and a new conductor. And a blue-chip cast.
Rigoletto in San Francisco
Every once in a while a warhorse redefines itself. This happened last night in San Francisco when Rigoletto propelled itself into the ranks of the great masterpieces of opera as theater — the likes of Falstaff and Tristan and Rossini’s Otello.
Festival MÈmoires in Lyon
Each March France’s splendid OpÈra de Lyon mounts a cycle of operas that speak to a chosen theme. Just now the theme is MÈmoires — mythic productions of famed, now dead, late 20th century stage directors. These directors are Klaus Michael Gr¸ber (1941-2008), Ruth Berghaus (1927-1996), and Heiner M¸ller (1929-1995).
Boris Godunov in Marseille
There has been much reconstruction of Marseille’s magnificent Opera Municipal since it opened in 1787. Most recently a huge fire in 1919 provoked a major, five-year renovation of the hall and stage that reopened in 1924.
Anna Bolena in Lisbon
Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, composed in 1830, didn’t make it to Lisbon until 1843 when there were 14 performances at its magnificent Teatro S„o Carlos (opened 1793), and there were 17 more performances spread over the next two decades. The entire twentieth century saw but three (3) performances in this European capital.
Billy Budd in Madrid
Like Carmen, Billy Budd is an operatic personage of such breadth and depth that he becomes unique to everyone. This signals that there is no Billy Budd (or Carmen) who will satisfy everyone. And like Carmen, Billy Budd may be indestructible because the opera will always mean something to someone.
Jeanne d’Arc au b˚cher in Lyon
There is no bigger or more prestigious name in avant-garde French theater than Romeo Castellucci (b. 1960), the Italian metteur en scËne of this revival of Arthur Honegger’s mystËre lyrique, Joan of Arc at the Stake (1938) at the OpÈra Nouvel in Lyon.