For many operagoers, “Don Carlo” is Verdi’s most Shakepearean work, pitting a wide-range of powerful characters against one another in an equally complex backdrop of European affairs. The opera had its world premiere on March 11, 1867 in Paris. However, it was an extremely long opera and was never performed in its entirety during that initial run. Verdi would then {…}
Feeling gloomy today? Or perhaps on the ultimate high? It’s all very operatic. The world of this famed art form is full of intense emotions with major characters taking painstaking time to delineate what they are feeling and how intensely. These powerful solo are amazing ways to connect with each of us on a truly immersive and visceral level, allowing {…}
Yes, it’s that time of the year where we wax poetic about transformative experiences we have had over the course of the last 300 or so days. Sometimes we curate these experiences as rankings to fuel some individual emotions, and at other moments we simply do what we are doing with this piece – let a few different people chip {…}
I arrived at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday night, Oct. 11, 2018, just in time to catch some of conductor James Conlon’s pre-performance talk to several hundred audience-members attending that evening’s Los Angeles Opera production of Verdi’s “Don Carlo.” Yes, Conlon regularly delivers these incredibly insightful introductions to the evening’s opera even as he’s about to go out and {…}
Giuseppe Verdi is Italy’s composer. Few composers have ever attained the legendary status of the man from Busetto, who created a plethora of operas throughout his career that remain fixtures of the standard repertoire today. Born on Oct. 9 (or was it 10?), 1813, Verdi would become the textbook example of how to achieve everlasting greatness when you put in {…}
Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas is no stranger to Verdi’s “Don Carlo.” The Mexican tenor, who takes on the role at the Los Angeles Opera for the first time this season on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2018, has performed the role all around the world. He has appeared as the Spanish prince in Vienna, in Munich, and in Zurich, among other cities. {…}
Over the past years Italian-American tenor Leonardo Capalbo has garnered international acclaim for performing in some of the leading theaters such as The Royal Opera Covent Garden, Teatro Real Madrid, La Monnaie, Berlin State Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, L’Opéra de Lyon, Teatro Regio di Torino, the Canadian Opera Company, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, {…}
Ferruccio Furlanetto is one of opera’s great Verdi basses, though his repertoire has vastly evolved throughout his successful career. Born on May 16, 1949, Furlanetto made his professional debut at age 25 in Lonigo. Five years later he was at La Scala in Verdi’s “Macbeth.” His Met debut came in 1981, where he has been a fixture throughout his career. {…}
“Don Carlos” or “Don Carlo?” In French or Italian? Four acts or five? Three hours or four? Paris, Naples, Milan or Modena version? Pas de deux or pas de nul? Verdi’s longest opera is so full of revisions, rewrites, authorized or impious corrections, it is impossible to nominate a definitive score. The master music dramatist tinkered with this opera for 20 {…}
“Don Carlo,” which premiered on March 11, 1867, is arguably Verdi’s most complex concoction. The work features five major characters, all of them imbued with tremendous complexity, some more than others. Among them we see a confused prince trying to find purpose in his life; a rebel ready to risk all for his cause; a queen troubled by the conflict {…}
It’s somewhat of a cliché for Golden Age thinking to creep into the dialogue of the opera world. How many times have you heard someone make the claim that they don’t make great voices the way they used to? The obvious answer is that they don’t because the world has changed and so have tastes. But sometimes, you’ll find those {…}