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. {…}
Who could outshine the great Javier Camarena singing “La Favorite” on the stage of the famous Donizetti festival? A consummate master of Bel Canto, singing the role of the head-over-heels-in-love novice, leaving the monastery to meet the woman of his dreams. Ah, we were certainly hooked on it. And yet, this year in Bergamo, the audience had to prepare to {…}
(Credit: Teatro de Madrid) The Teatro Real de Madrid opened its 2021-22 season with Rossini’s opera buffa “La Cenerentola” based on the famous tale of “Cinderella.” This is Teatro Real’s second post-lockdown season and is still presenting the works with social distancing and obligatory masks for members of the choir and extras. With “La Cenerentola” the Teatro was able to {…}