Christine Brewer Commands Performance in Last Minute Appearance
Category: Reviews
Franz Leh·r: Das Land des L‰chelns
Doris Sennefelder’s booklet essay for this CPO recording of Lehar’s Das Land des L‰chelns details how close the composer was to Puccini.
Opera Atelier does it as it was
It’s an odd day in opera when the bad girl wins, but that is only one thing that makes the Opera Atelier production of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea remarkable — and admirable.
The End of Bewilderment — The New Florence-Valencia Production of “G?tterd‰mmerung”
April 29th is Zubin Mehta’s birthday. As a gift to its most beloved musical director, Florence unveiled a new production of Gˆtterd‰mmerung, a joint Ring Cycle venture with the Valencia Opera started two years ago.
Donizetti’s “Maria Stuarda” at La Fenice — Two Women in a Labyrinth
From the word “go”, the audience feels that this “Maria Stuarda” is quite different from the standard fare offered by Italian theatres.
Lohengrin at The Royal Opera, London
I first saw this production in Manchester in 1981: I loved it then and love it now, despite the present hero’s un-Heldentenor qualities when compared to the glorious Peter Hoffman of yore.
Wolf-Ferrari: La vedova scaltra (“The Cunning Widow”).
One of the five operas Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) based on plays by Carlo Goldoni, La vedova scaltra (1748) is a comedy about a widow’s decision to use deception to choose among her suitors.
Don Giovanni at the MET with Peter Mattei
I returned to Don Giovanni firstly because I had never heard Peter Mattei sing, and friends had called him the greatest Don G since Siepi.
Walter Braunfels’s Die Vˆgel at Los Angeles Opera
The Recovered Voices series at Los Angeles Opera, in its second season, springs from James Conlon’s fascination and love for the operas of composers whose lives and/or careers came to an end under the Nazi regime.
Barbers in Baghdad and Seville
Razor-wielding rascals involve themselves in romantic complications in the two sets considered here, with a fine performance of a rarity and an even finer performance of a classic.