Making a Big Return – Elizabeth DeShong on ‘Semiramide,’ Riccardo Muti & Future Repertoire

At the start of Rossini’s “Semiramide,” Arsace returns to Babylon after a long time away. For years, Elizabeth DeShong has been a fixture at the Metropolitan Opera singing in such operas as “La Rondine,” “Aida,” “The Enchanted Island,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Madama Butterfly,” and “Lulu.” Then after the 2015-16 season, she did not return until now to take on {…}

Canadian Opera Company 2017-18 Review – The Abduction From the Seraglio: Revisions to Libretto Don’t Feel All That Necessary

Purists fear not. Rest easy, ye who learned with alarm that writer/director Wajdi Mouawad has taken extreme liberties with the libretto of Mozart’s early masterpiece, “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” not just tinkering with dialogue but inserting whole new scenes to both accentuate European racism and sexism and soften Ottoman despotism: not a note of Mozart’s divine magic has been {…}