Category: Performances

After the successful premiËre of Monteverdiís ìLíIncoronazione di Poppeaî (Saturday, November 25th) at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, General Director Placido Domingo spoke warmly and cogently about this early Italian masterpiece, about its free-flowing music and the perfect relevance of the text to todayís world with all its greed, ambition and self-seeking.

HOUSTON — “Hansel and Gretel” has taken a beating in recent seasons, as over-zealous directors — aping the excesses of Eurotrash Regieoper — have made Humperdink’s largely innocent retelling of the Grimms’ tale the victim of hyper-active imaginations.

On a cold, wet and dark Glasgow evening in November, some 500 brave souls received what was possibly their first taste of baroque opera.

LONDON ñ the fledgling Independent Opera Company takes on Orlando.

SAN FRANCISCO ó Christine Brewer took her time mastering Isolde before making her stage debut in the role with the San Francisco Opera in October.

The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy, had as many surprises on the stage inside as the weather had outside.

In his introduction to the Welsh National Opera’s celebratory 60th anniversary season programme Carlo Rizzi, their Music Director, declares that “we are bringing the best of Wales to the rest of the world ó and the best of the world to Wales”.

Carmen and The Magic Flute have finally made it onto my calendar, a nice way to end the summer opera festival at Santa Fe.

The news from Santa Fe Opera last week-end is good, unexpectedly so. The British composer Thomas Ades’ new (2004) opera, a riff on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, has been rumored hard to perform and harder to hear.

Richard Straussí 1905 neurotic shocker Salome has long been a favorite Santa Fe Opera repertory piece, having enjoyed ten productions over the years.