| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 8-Dec-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Álvarez and Hvorostovsky outstanding in the Met's Un ballo in maschera |
 Verdi experts regularly name Un ballo in maschera to be one of his finest works. In spite of this, it’s never reached the heights of popularity of La Traviata or Rigoletto, so a new production by an acclaimed director for a major opera house is a notable event. We watched David Alden’s New York Ballo from the comfort of a London cinema under the Met’s Live in HD series.
Read full review... | |
| 15-Sep-2012 Kennedy Center: Opera House | Sondra Radvanovsky shines in Washington National Opera's Anna Bolena |
 Ladies and gentlemen of Washington DC and the nearby lands!
If last fall you did not get a chance to journey to New York for the Met’s season-opening production of Anna Bolena – do not fret! Last Saturday the Washington National Opera opened its new season with a production of Anna Bolena (a little too bloody for a season opening if you ask me, but maybe that’s what attracts most people to opera these days).
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| 21-Jan-2012 Civic Opera House | A tale of two princesses at the Lyric Opera of Chicago |
 in Aida, (c) Dan Rest & Lyric Opera of Chicago.jpg) In our youth, my brother and I adored Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film The Ten Commandments. Not only did we like the well-written and brilliant take on the beloved biblical story of Moses, but we were also fascinated by the lavish sets and historical aspects of the film. Ancient Egypt – a fascinating and mysterious world of artistic and academic achievement – beckoned to us, as it did to Giuseppe Verdi 140 years ago.Read full review... | |
| 29-Jan-2011 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Success of new Tosca hangs on performance |
 If the painstaking recreation of Rome during the Napoleonic Wars is stripped away from the setting of Tosca. If choral numbers, sparing to begin with, are muted as distant drumbeats. If the title character is reinterpreted as a country girl with little artifice rather than a grand diva whose sheer confidence and sexuality prove irresistible to men. If the pageantry and pomp is limited to but one number, then all that’s left to savor watching Puccini’s fifth opera is the music itself.Read full review... | |
