“I believe that art should always be distinguished from politics, otherwise, we shouldn’t have to read Dostoevsky,” Gennaro Sangiuliano, the Culture Minister of Italy. And for this, Italy stands. This October, La Scala confirmed “Boris Godunov” for the season opener and instantly received a letter asking the company to rethink its 2022-23 season. The letter was sent by Ukrainian citizens {…}
(Credits Gianfranco Rota) This year’s edition of the Donizetti Opera Festival is yet another perfect example of how much diversity there can be in the repertoire of one great Italian composer. As with every previous year, as I looked at the line-up of three operas chosen for the festival, I was left wondering which one was going to be the {…}
(Photo: Festival Janacek Brno) Human beings need love and friendship to flourish and to pursue normal, balanced lives. Remove this support and replace it with abuse, neglect and contempt, and a person will become unable to function successfully. They will become maladjusted, unable to relate to others with ease and confidence, and suffer increasing periods of loneliness and isolation. Desperate {…}
Photo: © Lloyd Winters Unlike ballet, which has “The Nutcracker” as a festive staple, there aren’t very many Christmas operas. “La bohème” opens on Christmas eve, and there is invariably snow, but yuletide is hardly the subject of the opera. ENO were scheduled to perform John Adams nativity oratorio “El Niño” during lockdown, but it sadly got canned. Along comes {…}
(Photo: Marek Olbrzymek) Would any opera house be bold enough to present a work about the horrors of life in a gulag in which the guilty and innocent are thrown together to be abused, debased and left to die? Undoubtedly, the answer is yes! What if it were to be presented in a Christian context, in which Christ walks among {…}
(Credit: Charles Duprat / Opéra national de Paris) (This review is for performances on November 25 and 27) Netia Jones’ staging proves how much an ill-conceived mis-en-scene can affect the music, even when it is Mozart. In Portuguese, we say that Mozart’s music must be as a perfect and smooth as a rare pearl. There is even an adjective “perolado” {…}
San Francisco Opera outdid itself with Christoph Willibald Gluck’s 18th century masterpiece, “Orpheo ed Euridice.” An absolute gem, the opera was the piece de resistance of the season. The cast, the set, the music, all in a new production by director Matthew Ozawa and conducted by acclaimed early music interpreter Peter Whelan in his American opera stage debut. Rena Butler made {…}
This review is based on performances on Nov. 15 & 18, 2022. In every opera house, there is always an informal smoker’s meeting outside in the entr’acte. It is the best place to “feel the mood” of how an opera performance is being received. Hence, I am there solely for journalistic reasons, and nothing more. On this occasion, I went {…}
(Photo: Festival Janacek Brno) Janacek’s song cycle “The Diary of One Who Disappeared” is a regular inclusion at the Janacek Brno Festival. Yet such have been the variety of performances, they can often appear as very different works. At the 2020 festival, the cycle was presented as a staged work using Janáček’s own staging instructions, with Pavol Breslik in the {…}