(Photo: Padraig Grant) The second of Wexford Festival’s pocket operas, Opera Beag, was a presentation of Donizetti’s opéra-comique “La Fille du régiment.” Operating on a low-budget and using only piano accompaniment, director Heather Hadrill was under no illusions of the difficulties involved. In her program notes, she stated “The challenge of pocket operas is to give as full a sense {…}
Oper Burg Gars has announced its 2024 season, the first under artistic director Clemens Unterreiner. The main opera of the season will be “L’Elisir d’Amore.” The cast and crew will be announced at a future date. Performance Dates: July 13 – August 3, 2024 The organization will also feature the CultureBURG series which includes song evenings, exhibitions, concerts, and artist {…}
(Photo credit: Clive Barda/Royal Opera House) Nestling zest into impressionable appetites, bel canto master Donizetti’s “L’elisir d’amore” is a succulent confectioner’s delight: a cavalcade of strawberry and rhubarb shades that never age out of their calorific bubble. High on hyperactive captures of unravelling roulades and supercilious trills, its teasing feast of overblown, meringue-like vows empowers risk-taking directors. Decking his décor {…}
Opera Rara has announced the launch of the Donizetti Song Project on Sept. 9, 2023. The project will feature Donizetti’s entire song output, around 200 in total, showcased in performance and recordings. First up is “Donizetti & Friends” at Wigmore Hall, starring tenor Lawrence Brownlee and Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi. This event will include songs by Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, {…}
Santiago Ballerini as Poliuto. Credit: Steve Pisano Donizetti’s opera “Poliuto” is an odd duck with an intriguing history. Although completed in 1838, it did not premiere until ten years later, on November 30, 1848, at Teatro San Carlo. The delay resulted from disapproval from royal Neapolitan censors, who gave a big thumbs down to portraying a saint as a jealous {…}
Credit: Danae Kinova The Olympia City Music Theatre Maria Callas has unveiled its 2023-24 season, which includes three operas in both staged productions and concert versions. The season features a blend of Greek artists and international stars, including a concert by soprano Julie Fuchs. For the purposes of this article only opera and classical voice performances are listed. The season {…}
On June 20, 2023, the Essex Summer Opera Festival is set to open at the historic Tudor Palace, Layer Marney Tower near Colchester. Festival-goers can picnic and enjoy the 120-acre grounds over the next four days, as well as a production of Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love.” Stage director Guido Martin-Brandis and music director Orlando Jopling lead a cast comprised {…}
This must be a musicologist’s dream: while digging around in musty books in the quiet atmosphere of the library of a music conservatory, to come upon scores by Gaetano Donizetti and realizing that this is not yet another version of “Lucrezia Borgia” (there had been but, in fact, a different opera. Similar in plot and with music passages strongly reminiscent {…}
The Berliner Operngruppe is set to present the world premiere of Donizetti’s “Dalinda” starting on May 14, 2023 at the Konzerthaus Berlin. The opera will star Lidia Fridman in the title role. She will be joined by Yajie Zhang, Luciano Ganci, Paolo Bordogna, David Ostrek, Andrés Moreno García, Kangyoon Shine Lee, Fermin Basterra, Egor Sergeev, and Kento Uchiyama. Felix Krieger {…}
On May 3, 2023, New Amsterdam Opera presented a concert of excerpts from Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia.” Held at The Players in Gramercy, this concert comes as the company readies to mount a full production later this month, and featured the cover cast artists, accompanied by founder and artistic director, Keith Chambers. Opening the program was soprano Elizaveta Ulakhovich, who is {…}
On April 13, 2023, the Metropolitan Opera opened its April run of Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore.” Bartlett Sher’s 2012 production was met with new life thanks to a number of stunning debuts from the cast. The staging itself presents a view of Italy during unification which neither rebukes nor flatters the historical context of the work, leaving an authentic, if understated, {…}