While the entire opera world turned its attention toward Jonas Kaufmann’s “Otello” debut at the Royal Opera House, another production of Verdi’s famed masterpiece took to the stage in a hotly anticipated run. The Teatro Colón in Bogotá, Colombia is a small locale when compared to the world’s biggest opera houses, seating a little over 1,000 audience members. With baroque {…}
“Rigoletto” can’t be topped for its humanity. A father and a daughter, a jester, a virginal naif, longing for and trying to sustain a good a life in selfish and lecherous world, power-hungry and greedy, 16th century Mantua. Such is the subject of Verdi’s middle period masterpiece. The libretto by Francisco Maria Piave is based on the play “Le Roi {…}
The flamboyant new production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” a drama giocoso in two acts, was the brilliant ending of the 2016/2017 season of the Opéra de Lausanne. This was a remarkable event for the town, located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland on the picturesque shore of Lake Léman also known as Lake Geneva. Despite being one of the world’s {…}
In an inspired piece of programming the Tiroler Landestheater, Innsbruck paired Strauss’ “Capriccio” with Gluck’s “Orphée et Eurydice,” which were performed over two consecutive evenings. Separated by more than 160 years and in fundamentally different styles, they are nevertheless natural companion pieces. Although ‘Capriccio’ makes both musical and verbal references to Gluck, the connections between the two operas run far {…}
It may be wondered why Strauss decided to write an opera about the relative merits of the words and music in opera: “prima la musica o prima le parole?” Although it is a debate as old as opera itself, it is hardly a subject that is likely to excite potential audiences, and it is no doubt one of the reasons {…}
It’s hard not to applaud the New York City Opera for its return to form. A few years ago the company went into bankruptcy and had to close. It was devastating for opera lovers who wanted an alternative to the Metropolitan Opera and the rather barren New York opera landscape in general. But times have changed and thankfully the company {…}
Gluck’s “Orphée et Eurydice” in many ways can be summed up by the movement of the four seasons – the bloom and beauty of love dashed away by the winter of death, only for spring to bloom yet again in a rebirth of the protagonists. At the Teatro Mayor Julio Santo Domingo, the Ópera de Colombia and Teatro Mayor Julio {…}
San Francisco Opera’s “Don Giovanni” brings us bass-baritones with gusto, sopranos with flair, a tenor who pleads his case with feeling, and an opera that never ceases to amaze. Opening SFO’s 2017 summer season, Jacopo Spirei, in his SFO debut, offers us the ever satisfying chestnut in as provocative and seductive a production as the Don himself. Who can {…}
Cleveland is tough on her Mimì’s. Just over a year ago, Cleveland Opera Theater brought the Puccini warhorse “La Bohème” to the Masonic Auditorium of Cleveland, with founder and Executive Director Andrea Anelli as the tragic heroine; a month later, she arrived at an impasse with her Board of Directors and was out. One wonders whether Dorota Sobieska, who for {…}