At this famous bastion of intellect the biggest drama was the parking. Though the football stadium may have been stuffed, Zellerbach Hall was not.
Author: Michael Milenski
Lohengrin in San Francisco
Exquisite pianissimos, sumptuous climaxes, gigantic fortes, insistent horns, sugary winds, tremulous brass, blasting trumpets, whispering strings, pulsating oboes, more gigantic fortes, even more sumptuous climaxes.
Moby Dick in San Francisco
Forget Herman Melville, forget struggling with deep human complexities. At least those that possessed nineteenth century Americans.
I Capuleti e i Montecchi in San Francisco
Give me good verses, I’ll give you good music, said Bellini to his librettist Felice Romani. Give me a good director and I’ll give you good opera surely thought San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley.
Rigoletto in San Francisco
Four Rigolettos in nine days (for this critic), of twelve Rigolettos in 24 days (are these world records?).
Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro 2012
Ciro in Babilonia Matilda di Shaban and Il signor Bruschino in Rossini land.
David et Jonathas at the Aix Festival
Rare, very rare repertory that is not even opera stole the show at the sixty fourth Aix Festival.
Le Nozze di Figaro in Aix-en-Provence
You pay your money, you takes your chances — that is festival life at its best. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t. The fun is in the risk, so the riskier the better.
Written on Skin at the Aix Festival
Not about tattoo art, not an evocation of the Holocast, and let us not even try to put our finger on what it is about.
The Marriage of Figaro in Montpellier
Perfection. A seldom used term in critiques of opera performances. There it was, almost (and will be, maybe).