Fecund Jason, father of his wife Isifile’s twins and as well father of his seductress Medea’s twins, does indeed have a problem — he prefers to sleep with and wed Medea. In this resurrection of the most famous opera of the seventeenth century he evidently also sleeps with Hercules.
Author: Michael Milenski
Falstaff in Genoa
A Falstaff that raised-the-bar ever higher, this was a posthumous resurrection of Luca Ronconi’s masterful staging of Verdi’s last opera, the third from last of the 83 operas Ronconi staged during his lifetime (1933-2015). And his third staging of Falstaff following Salzburg in 1993 and Florence in 2006.
Madama Butterfly in San Francisco
A Butterfly for the ages in a Butterfly marred by casting ineptness and lugubrious conducting.
Aida in San Francisco
An exquisite pit, a Busby Berkeley stage, ingenue performers. Populist opera in San Francisco — in November eleven performances of Aida (alternating with ten of Madama Butterfly).
V?c Makropulos in San Francisco
A fixation on death at San Francisco Opera. A 337 year-old woman gave it all up just now after only six years since she last gave it all up on the War Memorial stage.
Don Pasquale in San Francisco
With only four singers and a short-story-like plot Don Pasquale is an ideal chamber opera. That chamber just now was the 3200 seat War Memorial Opera House where this not always charming opera buffa is an infrequent visitor (post WWII twice in the 1980’s after twice in the 40’s).
Dream of the Red Chamber in San Francisco
Globalization finds its way ever more to San Francisco Opera where Italian composer Marco Tutino’s La Ciociara saw the light of day in 2015 and now, 2016, Chinese composer Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber has been created.
Andrea ChÈnier at San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera makes occasional excursions into the operatic big-time, such just now was Giordano’s blockbuster Andrea ChÈnier, last seen at the War Memorial 23 years ago (1992) and even then after a hiatus of 17 years (1975).
Salzburg encores
A staged piano recital and an opera as a concert.† Pianist Andr·s Schiff accompanied the Salzburg Marionette Theater at the Mozarteum Grosser Saal and Anna Netrebko sang Manon Lescaut at the Grosses Festspielhaus.
Turco in Italia in Pesaro
When more is definitely more, and less would indeed be less. Two of the biggest names in Italian theater art collide in an eponymous theater.