On Feb. 25, 2020, the Teatro Mayor in Bogota debuted a new production of Mozart and Da Ponte’s “Don Giovanni.” “Don Giovanni” is perhaps one of the most controversial yet relevant operas of today. It is a an opera that tells the story of a man who abuses women and gets away with it, all while mocking them. Given the {…}
The Teatro alla Scala in Milan presented Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” in a production by the American director Bartlett Sher and revived by Dan Rigazzi. For this production, the tragedy of the Verona lovers, with the libretto by Carré and Barbier, is set in an eighteenth-century Italian city, with a sumptuous neoclassical style palace at the core of the scenery {…}
(Credit: Deutsche Oper Berlin/Bettina Stöß) Based on a comedy by William Shakespeare, Britten and Pears’ “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” had its world premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival on June 11, 1960, with the composer conducting. Britten and Pears tried to bring Shakespeare’s magical world onstage both as a play and as a vocal piece. Alas, the opera has since struggled {…}
There is a famous painting by Gustave Moreau called “Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre” from 1865. The foreground shows exactly what the title describes. The background is harder to make out: some people are gathered on a cliff, one of them playing an aulos. Small tortoises walk near the Thracian woman’s feet, happily sauntering about {…}
(Credit: Stephanie Berger) As part of the MetLiveArts series and Project 19 initiative, The Met Museum collaborated with musicians from the NY Philharmonic and singers from The Juilliard School’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts in a historical performance of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s “The Mother of Us All.” This creative collaboration was the first of {…}
(Credit: Claudio Papapietro) It’s been a great month for Handel fans in New York City. Earlier this February, the Metropolitan Opera premiered Handel’s 1709 opera “Agrippina” for the first time (ever!) in a new production by David McVicar. And just a few weeks later, The Juilliard School presented another early Handel piece – his 1711 opera “Rinaldo,” just across the {…}
(Credit: Konstantin Nazlamov/TOBS) The small Swiss town of Biel is home to what must be one of the world’s smallest theaters that is able to boast a regular opera season. With a seating capacity of under 300, spread over three tiers, it is an intimate space in which everyone in the audience is close to the stage. The orchestra pit {…}
(Credit: Timothy White for Decca) Wearing a shiny taupe gown that reflected minimized images of the lights above, soprano Renée Fleming and pianist Gerald Martin Moore entered to applause that showed they have fans in this desert city. They opened with a Valentine befitting February 14th: George Frideric Handel’s enticing “Bel Piacere è Godere.” Fleming followed its fast, tricky coloratura {…}
(Credit: Javier del Real) The Teatro Real de Madrid kicked off 2020 with a revival of the successful production of “Die Zauberflöte” by Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade-Paul Barrit, which was last seen in 2016. The staging is meant as an homage to silent movies and there are no sets, just a big white screen very close to the edge {…}
