Author: Michael Milenski

This is the excellent David Alden 2018 production from Covent Garden. Here is how it fared at the War Memorial Opera House. It fit like a glove due to strong…

Is it man pitted against machines, or is it man sacrificed to machine? Or is it mankind sacrificed to machines. Sitting in the War Memorial Opera House for Mason Bates’…

Enrico Caruso said that Trovatore is easy — you just need the four greatest singers in the world. Let us not argue about who these singers may be. Do let…

That’s Festival International Film d’Opéra d’Entrecasteaux (a tiny village in Provence). The two films of this inaugural year were Francesco Rosi’s 1984 Carmen and Luigi Comencini’s 1988 La boheme (lead photo). The surprisingly…

The Arena di Verona has just hosted its 100th year of summer opera. Long ago the Arena had places for 30,000 Romans, now, with one-third of the monumental structure as an…

Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů was a WWII refugee to the U.S. who returned to Europe (Switzerland) in his last years (d. 1959) where he turned Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis’ Christ…

Falstaff at the hands of old-guard avant-gardistes Christof Marthaler and Anna Viebrock. Set on a sound stage somewhere (certainly Hollywood) where Orson Wells is acting or directing his three Falstaff…

There are intractable conventions at Bayreuth. There are no supertitles. Parsifal is done every year (though it was not during WWII due to ideological incompatibility). There is no applause after…

Adelaide di Borgogna was the wife of Lothario, king of Italy, who was assassinated in the year 950 A.D. Rossini set the eponymous dramma per musica by one Giovanni Schmidt…

The year is 1813, Rossini is 22 years old. He has had two huge successes in Venice — L’italiana in Algeri, his first big comedy (there were seven smaller ones…