You need three or, ideally, four top-flight bel canto specialists to do anything like justice to Rossini’s Semiramide, his last and grandest Italian score. Otherwise why go to the expense?
Category: Performances
On deception at Sferisterio Festival, Macerata, Italy
L’inganno is this year’s theme at the Sferisterio Festival in Macerata, Italy.
Paris: King Roger Goes Hollywood
Paris Opera seems to posit the question: Does anyone completely understand what Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger is about?
‘Opera Noir’ Entertains at Santa Fe
Can a famously successful movie be made into an effective opera? A
quick answer is: yes!
Schubert bounces along at Wigmore Hall
The performance of lieder is a partnership between singer and pianist. In May I heard Julius Drake redeem an indifferent recital by the sheer beauty of his playing. I’ve been listening to him for more than 15 years. He’s a favorite. So I was completely taken by surprise by this recital
An Evening at PËre Lachaise [Or, Natalie Dessay Attempts Violetta]
A fine-sounding Santa Fe Opera orchestra, excellently conducted by FrÈdÈric
Chaslin, was barely into the haunting, delicate prelude to Act I of La
traviata, when a funeral procession, wet umbrellas unfurled, arrived to
wend its way though a stage full of big grey marble rectangular boxes,
handsomely abstracted tomb shapes, soon to be the courtesan Violetta
ValÈry’s destination. So much for the Prelude to Act I.
Bought and Paid-for Magic — Bernstein Tahiti in Munich’s CuvilliËs Theater
There she is, in her inch or two of sarong, floating, floating…Oh, excuse me, where was I?
A knock-out Ariadne auf Naxos at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera Festival
There are rare times when a critic can just enjoy, and say “Wow!”
Tosca at the Baths of Caracalla, Rome
Tosca is the quintessential Roman opera, with a plot located in
three infamous landmarks of Rome, its 1900 premiere in Rome was bound to be
enormously successful.