Every production at the Donizetti Opera Festival has its specialty and purpose. One (this year, “Roberto Devereux”) is a serious production of the highest quality, another is a rare piece (this time “Zoraida di Granata,” which also took a stand to bring the most serious and painful topics to the stage), and another is fun and delightful. So, when you {…}
Raising a child is a complicated process. Raising a prodigious one is absolutely unforeseen and fraught with constant error, for no ordinary laws apply here. The Donizetti Festival in Bergamo, although still an officious event, always seemed to be this prodigy for me, every year somehow attempting to prove that Donizetti’s music might be the center of the opera world. {…}
(Photo: Gianfranco Rota) As part of the Donizetti Opera Festival (DOF), the stage came to life with “Don Pasquale,” the renowned opera buffa by Gaetano Donizetti, one of the last and most refined jewels of Italian bel canto. This production in Bergamo not only pays homage to the composer in his hometown but also celebrates the tenth anniversary of its {…}
(Credit: Marco Borrelli) Sometimes one has the impression that anniversaries are used to rationalize our infatuation with the music of an already popular composer. Such is the case this year when opera houses around the globe are commemorating the centenary of Puccini, the most performed opera composer after Verdi and Mozart. The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is no exception and in {…}
(Photo credit: Lewis Valdes) Opening night of “the new FGO” sought to pique the interest of multiple generations by combining the magic of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” with the unique fantasy world building of role-playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons. In this production, director Jeffrey Marc Buchman took full advantage of the creative liberties bestowed upon the leader of a {…}
(Photo: Pádraig Grant) In 1907, J.M. Synge’s play “The Playboy of the Western World” caused rioting when it premiered at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. It was not so much the portrayal of its central character, Christy Mahon, who turns up in a Mayo town, claiming to be on the run for killing his father, but the reaction of the local women, {…}
(Photo: Patricio Cassinoni) At his best, Donizetti is a master of the comic opera, with works such as “Don Pasquale” and “L’Elisir d’Amore” still playing to packed houses almost 200 years after their premieres. Others, however, are less well-known; his 1831 one-act farce, “Le Convenienze ed Inconvenienze Teatrali,” being a case in point. Few people will have heard of it, {…}
(Photo Credit : Klara Beck) The Strasbourg Opera in collaboration with the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden and the Lausanne Opera is offering Handel’s “Ariodante” from November 6th-13th. The production will then go to Mulhouse on November 22nd and 24th. On closer inspection, this drama per musica announces many of the operas to come to amateurs. Thus, its three-act {…}
(Credit: Marty Sohl / Metropolitan Opera) On Nov. 12, the Metropolitan Opera revived its production of Puccini’s “Tosca” to celebrate 100 years of the composer’s death. It was the second cast in the season following an acclaimed turn from Aleksandra Kurzak in September. For this evening, the Met put its hopes on what, on paper, looked like an all-star cast {…}