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DVD and CD Reviews, Reviews

CD Review: Ottorino Respighi’s ‘Maria Egiziaca’

https://operawire.com/cd-review-ottorino-respighis-maria-egiziaca/

  Historiography operates through superlatives. All too easily, it compresses organic development into the quasi-religious advent of the monstre sacré. This antiquarianism of sorts keeps a particularly tight grip on the development of Italian opera: There’s Monteverdi at one end, Puccini at the other—no ante, no post. But what about Ottorino Respighi, born some twenty years after the composer of {…}
DVD and CD Releases, News

Jodie Devos, Luciano Pavarotti, Berit Norbakken Rolando Villazon, Freddie de Tommaso Lead New CD/DVD Releases

https://operawire.com/jodie-devos-luciano-pavarotti-berit-norbakken-rolando-villazon-freddie-de-tommaso-lead-new-cd-dvd-releases/

Welcome back for this week’s look at the latest CD and DVD releases in the opera world. This week audiences get to hear a lost concert from a legendary tenor, an homage to a great singer who we lost too soon, a new album from one of the great tenors of our time, and a new song by a rising {…}
Reviews, Stage Reviews

Teatro Municipale di Piacenza 2024-25 Review: La Traviata

https://operawire.com/piacenza-municipal-theatre-2024-25-review-la-traviata/

(Photo: © Gianni Cravedi & ® Luca Attilii) The Teatro Municipale di Piacenza presented an ambitious project dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi: “Rigoletto,” “Il trovatore,” and “La Traviata,” brought together in a single cycle under the title “Popular Trilogy,” all performed within the same week. Although not originally conceived by Verdi as a unified set, these three operas represent the composer’s {…}
Reviews, Stage Reviews

Teatro alla Scala 2024-25 Review: Anna A. 

https://operawire.com/teatro-alla-scala-2024-25-review-anna-a/

(Photo: Brescia e Amisano / Teatro alla Scala) A major project with deeply feminine roots took place at Teatro alla Scala with the world premiere of “Anna A.,” a commission that, for the first time in the theater’s history, was entrusted to a female composer. The honor went to none other than Silvia Colasanti, currently the most frequently performed living {…}
Behind the Scenes, Interviews

Q & A: Alexander Shelley & Joel Ivany on What Makes Opera a Vital Part of Canada’s Vibrant Culture

https://operawire.com/q-a-alexander-shelley-joel-ivany-on-what-makes-opera-a-vital-part-of-canadas-vibrant-culture/

(Photo: Alexander Shelley © Rémi Thériault / Joel Ivany © Taylor Long) OperaWire recently attended Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) for their National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) semi-staged production of Puccini’s “Tosca.” The day after their opening night performance, OperaWire was invited to sit down with the Music Director and Conductor of NACO, Alexander Shelley, and the Artistic Director of Edmonton {…}
Reviews, Stage Reviews

Opernhaus Zürich 2025-26 Review: Der Rosenkavalier

https://operawire.com/opernhaus-zurich-2025-26-review-der-rosenkavalier/

On Sept. 21, 2025, the Opernhaus Zürich opened the 2025-26 season with a new production of “Der Rosenkavalier.” The season opening was the start of General Director Mattias Schulz’s tenure, and based on this premiere, it is a great start. Fantasy World  The production by Lydia Steier is a confection of colorful sets that mix time periods and wild fantastical {…}
Reviews, Stage Reviews

Bayreuth Festival 2025 Review: Der Ring Des Nibelungen

https://operawire.com/bayreuth-festival-2025-review-der-ring-des-nibelungen/

(Photo Credit: Enrico Nawrath) The power of the music transcends any single interpreter. From the primal opening chord the rising and falling of Richard Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk will lead audiences through 17 hours of an ecstatic vision. Amidst such orchestral glory, however, the second cycle of the Bayreuth Festival’s 2025 “Ring” provided plenty of conceptual confusion as Wagner-lovers bid a grateful {…}
Reviews, Stage Reviews

The Atlanta Opera 2025 Review: Semele

https://operawire.com/the-atlanta-opera-2025-review-semele/

(Photo credit Raftermen Photography) The Atlanta Opera (TAO) closed their 2024-25 mainstage season with Georg Frideric Handel’s 1744 semi-oratorio, or quasi-opera, “Semele.” General Director Tomer Zvulun structured the season around art’s transnational commonplace, the Hero’s Journey. But interestingly, all four works selected also play with genre and they address the nearly unanswerable question, ‘what is opera, anyway?’ They began with {…}
Editorials, Reviews

‘Don Giovanni’ Is One of the Greatest Works Ever Written. Why Is It So Hard for Directors to Get Right?

https://operawire.com/don-giovanni-is-one-of-the-greatest-works-ever-written-why-is-it-so-hard-for-directors-to-get-right/

(Photo: © Monika Rittershaus) “Don Giovanni” is an opera of seductions and escapes, moral wreckage and divine retribution, a shimmering mosaic of comedy, tragedy, farce, and existential dread. Yet “the mother of all operas” is also a uniquely treacherous work—at once alluring and intractable, irresistibly open yet elusive. Music’s sublimity rarely fails to connect with audiences, even in a less-than-stellar {…}

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