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.
Author: Michael Milenski
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).
The Magic Flute in San Francisco
A feast for the eyes, a feast for the ears, a Flute from America’s heartland that goes directly to your heart.
Attila in San Francisco
Fanfares that celebrate soldiers with plumed helmets by a composer who donned a helmet (metaphorically) — Verdi the operatic father of the Risorgimento!
Nixon in China, San Francisco
John Adams’ Nixon in China is an amazing, riveting piece of music, and compelling theater to boot.
Mazeppa in Monte-Carlo
Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa is not everyday repertory, nonetheless here in the south of France the Monaco production follows fairly closely (a couple of years) on the heels of the Peter Stein Mazeppa in Lyon.
The Charterhouse of Parma in Marseille
Henri Sauguet is not entirely unknown in opera circles — divas Regine Crespin, Felicity Lott, Nathalie Dessay and Leontyne Price have included his arias in their solo albums. Plus there is a recording of his 1954 opera-comique Les Caprices de Marianne.
L’Enfant et les SortilËges and La Navarraise in Monte-Carlo
The magic was in the pit, not that all Monaco was not magical — on January 25 a yellow Lamborghini, a red Ferrari, a vintage Jaguar among other magnificent machines stood before the entrance to Monte-Carlo’s resplendent Casino cum transplendent 500-seat opera house.