| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 14-Jun-2013 St George's Bristol | A memorable performance of La Traviata from Opera Project at St George's Bristol | Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres |
 Opera Project’s production of Verdi’s famous and arguably most-loved opera La Traviata was not lacking in impact, considering it was a small-scale production. This being the second time I have seen an Opera Project production, I am certainly not dissuaded from seeing what they come up with next. La Traviata is a chamber opera, in a way, well suited to the smaller venue of St George’s Bristol. The story is not the generic love triangle tale, with conflict between a hero and a villain. The conflict instead is between a heroine and a father.Read full review... | ||
| 7-Jun-2013 Birmingham Symphony Hall | A bit of Wales comes to Birmingham: a night at the opera with Bryn Terfel and friends | Katherine Dixson, katherinedixson.co.uk |
 A concert like this could have three possible outcomes: one, frustration at catching just a glimpse of a multitude of operas without the benefit of character or plot development or the embellishment of sumptuous costumes or stage sets; two, inspiration to delve further into the world of opera, nudged by tantalising hints of dramatic tension and a world of emotions; or three, sheer escapism into a soundscape of wonderful music that stands up for itself in its own right without the theatre’s trappings.Read full review... | ||
| 3-Jun-2013 Theater an der Wien | Philipp Stölzl's Il Trovatore has successful Wiener Festwochen test-run before travelling to Berlin | Snapdragon |
 Il Trovatore has doggedly survived in opera’s hit charts despite dispensing generous quantities of hair-raising as well as eyebrow-raising content. Verdi’s music is intoxicating, of course, but there is something to this work that makes it accessible beyond reasoning.Read full review... | ||
| 2-Jun-2013 Southbank Centre: Queen Elizabeth Hall | Unjust neglect? Chelsea Opera Group makes a good case for Verdi's Alzira | David Karlin |
 Alzira, Verdi’s eighth opera, is something of a discarded child within his canon, not least because of Verdi’s own dismissal of it as “proprio brutta” (really ugly) after it was poorly received both in Naples and Rome. Perhaps Verdi was stung by a blot on an otherwise successful career: on the basis of last night’s concert performance by Chelsea Opera Group, the score has plenty to commend it.
Read full review... | ||
| 29-May-2013 New National Theatre: Opera House | Graham Vick's Nabucco relocates to modern Tokyo | Nahoko Gotoh |
 Nabucco in a shopping mall – this is Graham Vick’s concept for his new production of Verdi’s early masterpiece created specifically for New National Theatre Tokyo. In the production notes, Vick writes that in this Nabucco, he wanted to find an alternative for Jehovah, God of the Hebrews, because Japanese people don’t believe in the existence of the Divine, and he decided to replace God with “Nature”. Thus the Hebrew people become modern Japanese people who have turned their backs to “Nature” and have become worshipers of materialism.Read full review... | ||
| 17-May-2013 Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric | Traditional Rigoletto in Baltimore: A tribute to Verdi | Raisa Massuda, mandolinvision.blogspot.com |
 In the opera world, where loyalty to the libretto is oftentimes taken for poor taste and the use of period sets and costumes is attributed to the lack of a directorial concept, seeing a traditional production becomes a rare (and very comforting) treat. While certain enjoyment may be found in minimalistic sets and street clothes replacing costumes, a traditional production staged with respect for the libretto and the classical staging canons will never be out of style.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-May-2013 The Haverford School: Centennial Hall | Big, beautiful voices power AVA's Ballo | Gale Martin, operatoonity.com |
 “For some operas,” famed conductor Carlo Maria Giulini once said, “you can accept a voice of not absolute beauty – if it is well used and he is an artist and interpreter, it will work. But for Verdi you need all this plus the essential sound.”
The Academy of Vocal Arts’ final production of the 2012/13 season, Verdi’s Un Ballo In Maschera, delivered a cadre of beautiful dramatic voices also capable of producing that “essential sound” critical to the opera’s success.
Read full review... | ||
| 20-Apr-2013 Southbank Centre: Royal Festival Hall | An outstanding Verdi Requiem from the Philharmonia and Gatti | David Karlin |
 Every once in a while, I hear a concert that grips me from the first note and doesn’t let go until the very last. Daniele Gatti and the Philharmonia’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall was such a concert.
Read full review... | ||
| 20-Apr-2013 San Diego Civic Theatre | San Diego Opera's flashy Aida features standout soprano Latonia Moore | Matthew Richard Martinez |
 Aida typifies all that is grand about opera. Its exotic setting, majestic music, and dramatic love triangle can make for an evening unique among performing arts events. It’s not a bad way to close an opera season either. San Diego Opera did so on Saturday, capping a uniformly satisfying season with Zandra Rhodes’ vibrant production that was refreshing and at times thrilling.
Read full review... | ||
| 17-Apr-2013 Konzerthaus: Großer Saal | A musical thrill at the Wiener Konzerthaus: Simon Boccanegra recorded live | Snapdragon |
 With the business situation in the recording industry being what it is, studio recordings of operas are more or less ruled out. The positive side of this is that the general public gets the chance to be part of concerts that are recorded and enjoy the tension such an event creates more often.Read full review... | ||
| 12-Apr-2013 Huddersfield Town Hall | Wagner, Verdi and sorrowful Stanford with the Huddersfield Choral Society | Andrew H. King |
 The bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth is inescapable, and it comes as no surprise that, however brief their offering, an institution as august as the Huddersfield Choral Society (HCS) could not allow the moment to pass without taking advantage of the opportunity to perform one of Wagner’s most impressive choral outbursts – “Wacht auf! Es nahet gen den Tag” (Awake! the dawn of day draws near) from Act III of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.Read full review... | ||
| 6-Apr-2013 National Concert Hall | Drama at Joseph Calleja's concert in Dublin | Andrew Larkin |
 There was more than a little drama at Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja’s sold-out concert recital in Dublin’s National Concert Hall this evening. He was joined by Irish soprano Claudia Boyle and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Proinnsías Ó Duinn. Predictability was the order of the day in the choice of programme: familiar arias and duets from the Italian and French operas with a complementary sprinkling of overtures and intermezzi for the orchestra. This was as close one gets to popular classical music: songs that might feature on the classical charts.Read full review... | ||
| 30-Mar-2013 Semperoper | A dream cast: Rigoletto at the Dresden Semperoper | Matthew Lynch |
 Dating from 2008, the Semperoper’s current production of Rigoletto is quite intriguing. It’s set in what appears to be a swanky 21st-century Berlin apartment – industrial, sparse and effortlessly cool – and in many ways this is an interesting choice. Berlin life is notoriously debaucherous, and this matches well to the Duke’s court in the opera, where sin and vice are not just condoned, but encouraged. There’s also something about the bleak simplicity of the set, which makes it seem almost timeless, emphasising the eternal nature of the emotions played out on stage.Read full review... | ||
| 30-Mar-2013 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | The chorus takes the honours in the Royal Opera's Nabucco | David Karlin |
 “Fly, my thoughts, on gilded wings; fly to rest on hills and mounts.” It’s no understatement to say that Va, pensiero, the Act 3 chorus of the Hebrew slaves in Nabucco, catapulted Giuseppe Verdi to lasting fame. It remains one of the biggest moments in any opera, and the Royal Opera Chorus performed it superbly last night. It was a sort of collective messa di voce, swelling from gentle yearning to the full-voiced nostalgia in the third verse modulation, dying back to an almost whispered ending.
Read full review... | ||
| 24-Mar-2013 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | Verdi's Requiem with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and L'Orchestre Métropolitain | Andrew Crust |
 If you were to measure the potency of this afternoon’s concert of Verdi’s Requiem by the sheer number of grown men weeping at the end, I’d say it was an unparalleled success. In fact, after that grandiose musical testament, operatic in scope, the applause was nearly endless and every soul in the hall rose to stand.
Read full review... | ||
| 18-Mar-2013 Bloomsbury Theatre | Lombards but no crusade: Verdi's I Lombardi at UCOpera | David Karlin |
 UCOpera, the opera company of University College London, has a history of putting on lesser known Verdi works: amongst many others, they have staged the British premières of Alzira, Oberto and the original 1847 version of Macbeth. This year, they've turned their attention to I Lombardi alla prima crociata ("The Lombards at the first crusade"), Verdi's follow-up to his smash hit Nabucco, which was as successful as Nabucco in its early years, although it has since faded from the repertoire.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-Mar-2013 Hackney Empire | James Conway's updated Simon Boccanegra with ETO at Hackney Empire | Francesca Vella |
 English Touring Opera’s Verdi title for their Spring season in this composer’s (and Wagner’s) anniversary year is one of no small ambition. Premièred to only modest success in Venice in 1857, it would take Verdi another 20 or so years to return to Simon Boccanegra to try to fix the old “wobbly table” (as he and his librettist, Boito, later dubbed the 1857 version). Launched in a thoroughly revised version at La Scala, Milan in 1881, the work remained relatively unpopular with audiences for many years.Read full review... | ||
| 25-Feb-2013 Civic Opera House | Verdi's Rigoletto at Lyric Opera of Chicago | Dan Wang |
 Of all the mischievous dramatic reversals that line Rigoletto’s plot – the hunchbacked jester tricked into abducting his own daughter, the daughter tricked into loving the brainless Duke (posing as a penniless student), and the terrifying reunion of father and daughter in a scene of murder – is not the most breathtaking, after all, the fact that the opera begins with a convincing display of the debauched status of romance but then confronts us, for the remainder of Act I, with all the innocence and conviction of Gilda’s first love?Read full review... | ||
| 23-Feb-2013 Kirche St Georg | Ensemble Vocalisa Variable perform works for female voices in Denzlingen | Nicholas Reed |
| The Ensemble Vocalisa Variabile presented a varied programme in the Kirche St Georg, Denzlingen, featuring eight different composers whose period of activity spanned no less than six centuries. In addition to a number of fine musical high-points, it was this versatility which proved to be one of the most impressive aspects of the performance.
Read full review... | ||
| 16-Feb-2013 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Rigoletto in flashing neon lights at the Met in HD | Katy S. Austin |
 Verdi’s Rigoletto is possessed of a truly tragic plot. A physically disabled jester keeps his innocent daughter locked up except for weekly church visits, a situation which she only lightly resists. Rigoletto believes a curse is to blame for his daughter being killed, although she only dies as a substitute for the man Rigoletto himself has arranged to be assassinated. It’s a tragic, sexist and uncomfortable story which belongs firmly in the 16th century.Read full review... | ||
| 15-Feb-2013 Sydney Opera House: Opera Theatre | A belly-full of laughs at Opera Australia's production of Verdi's Falstaff | David Larkin |
 Tragedy seems to age better than comedy. The works of Aeschylus have been more influential than those of Aristophanes, and Shakespeare’s darker plays are far more popular than his pure comedies. This same propensity for gloomy subjects can also be seen in the opera world. With notable exceptions in the cases of Mozart and Rossini, the composers whose works are most frequently performed today tend to be better known for their tragedies than their lighter works: think of Puccini, Wagner, Bizet.Read full review... | ||
| 2-Feb-2013 The London Coliseum | Disentangling La Traviata with Konwitschny at ENO | Francesca Vella |
 Of the many and varied operatic openings, that of La Traviata is one that I find increasingly demanding on an emotional level. The mournful harmonies and diaphanous scoring for strings that start off the prelude notoriously portray ill-fated Violetta moments before she dies of TB, returning in the final act as her destiny is about to be fulfilled.Read full review... | ||
| 29-Jan-2013 Sydney Opera House: Opera Theatre | Efficient Trovatore at the Sydney Opera House | David Larkin |
 Simultaneously one of the most loved and most mocked operas in the canon, Il trovatore has some of Verdi’s catchiest melodies set to one of his silliest plots. Against the backdrop of a 15th-century Spanish war, a cast of nobles, gypsies, nuns and soldiers enact a drama which hinges on that hoariest of dramatic clichés: children swapped at birth.Read full review... | ||
| 24-Jan-2013 Sydney Opera House: Opera Theatre | Memorable re-visioning of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera at the Sydney Opera House | David Larkin |
 “I would ask what the management’s drama has in common with mine. The title? No. The poet? No. The period? No. The place? No. The characters? No.”
This excerpt from Verdi’s legal proceedings against the management of San Carlo, who were trying to foist changes on Un Ballo in Maschera, came vividly to my mind last night at Sydney Opera House. Read full review... | ||
| 16-Jan-2013 Leeds Grand Theatre | New production of Verdi's Otello from Opera North | Sam Wigglesworth |
 Few operas begin as arrestingly as Verdi’s Otello; no overture here – or, indeed, the first act of Shakespeare’s play. Instead, in a single galvanising orchestral outburst a terrific storm is set in motion, underpinned by the most gratingly dissonant of pedals in the lowest reaches of the organ.Read full review... | ||
| 8-Dec-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Álvarez and Hvorostovsky outstanding in the Met's Un ballo in maschera | David Karlin |
 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... | ||
| 12-Nov-2012 RADA Studios: The Studio Theatre | La Traviata in Berlin, 1938 by Opera UK | Dorothy Wilson |
 Jane McCulloch’s production of La Traviata is currently playing in the small Studio Theatre at RADA. The intriguing setting of Berlin, 1938, is rendered subtly, through wonderful 1930s costumes designed by the director, and references to Berlin life in McCulloch’s new translation. The strong company of singers are accompanied by light musical forces: a five-piece band led from the piano by Stephen Hose, including violin, viola, cello and clarinet. The production has a minimal set.Read full review... | ||
| 10-Nov-2012 Pitlochry Festival Theatre | Scottish Opera's La Traviata on a big tour round the wee bits of Scotland | David Smythe |
 It is always a challenge to take live opera to the places opera does not reach, and let’s face it, many people live a distance from the main performing venues. A long drive home after a three-hour opera or an overnight stay in the city weeds out all but the dedicated followers. Recent developments in cinema technology allow the Met to broadcast live relays round the world, with the Royal Opera and Glyndebourne now following suite.Read full review... | ||
| 10-Nov-2012 Kennedy Center: Terrace Theater | Angela Meade and Bradley Moore perform at the Kennedy Center | Raisa Massuda, mandolinvision.blogspot.com |
 On Saturday night the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater was packed with opera fans who had come to enjoy a solo recital from aspiring American soprano Angela Meade. No wonder this one-time-only performance was a complete sell-out – there was no way that DC opera fans would pass up the opportunity to sneak-preview her performance, as she is up for the title role in Bellini’s Norma later this season.
Read full review... | ||
| 31-Oct-2012 Théâtre des Champs-Élysées | Belgium offers Paris a night of music and royalty | Leopold Tobisch |
 (c) A S Trebulak.jpg) As I made my way to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a mass of photographers and guests dressed in their evening best waited eagerly by the front doors. Alas, this reception was not for me, but rather for the Prince and Princess of Belgium, the evening’s guests and the very reason behind the concert. In a bid to host the 2017 International Exposition, the concert was an opportunity for Belgium to bring some of its cultural highlights to Paris and demonstrate what it is capable of.Read full review... | ||
| 27-Oct-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | The Met's Otello in the cinema | David Karlin |
 The devil, they say, has all the best lines. In yesterday's performance of Verdi's Otello at the Met, the villain was simply sensational. Falk Struckmann's delivery of Jago's Credo in un Dio crudel (“I believe in a cruel God”) was a masterpiece of nihilism, combining power and richness of voice with a tone of pure, matter of fact evil. Throughout the opera, Struckmann avoided overacting: he simply let Boito's and Shakespeare's words do the talking, giving them weight and character through his singing voice.
Read full review... | ||
| 20-Oct-2012 The Dofasco Centre for the Arts | Rigoletto as a modern office drama from Opera Hamilton | James Karas |
 Can you set Verdi’s Rigoletto in a high-rise apartment building, in modern dress, without popping any of your credulity strings? Probably not, but that is what Opera Hamilton has done in its latest production, directed by Michael Cavanagh.
During the overture, Rigoletto, a court jester, walks on stage dragging a large duffel bag from which he pulls out a puppet that he will use to mock the courtiers. We will see the duffel bag again!
Read full review... | ||
| 14-Oct-2012 Hong Kong Cultural Centre: Grand Theatre | La Traviata with Opera Hong Kong: A commendable breakthrough | Alan Yu, alanayu.wordpress.com |
 Verdi’s La Traviata is frequently listed as one of the most often programmed operas worldwide. Since it premiered in 1854, it must have greeted audiences around the world tens of thousands of times. It’s no wonder that all directors feel compelled to find new angles of interpretation to inject freshness and vitality into the opera – Willy Decker’s bold attempt at contemporary near-minimalism in Salzburg and then New York being the most memorable in the last decade.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-Oct-2012 Music Centre / Musiikkitalo: Camerata Hall | Joseph Calleja with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki | Bèla Bianca |
 Tenor Joseph Calleja, conductor Giuliano Carella and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra presented an interesting choice of repertoire on Monday. The composers were celebrated Italian and French masters of opera, and the programme alternated between overtures for orchestra and arias starring Calleja. Already at this point an element of balance was detectable: the alternation between orchestra-only and orchestra-and-soloist pieces suggested that they played an equally important role.
Read full review... | ||
| 4-Oct-2012 Semperoper | A relentlessly dark Don Carlo at the Dresden Semperoper | Matthew Lynch |
 There’s something relentlessly dark about Verdi’s Don Carlo. King Philippe and his son, the eponymous Don Carlo, are both very troubling characters, the former power-hungry and vengeful, the latter plagued by desire for his stepmother. Standing next to them are the stepmother herself, Elisabeth, and Don Carlo’s friend, Rodrigo, who are both models of selflessness, but suffer the consequences of their generosity of spirit. Light relief is provided by Princess Eboli, but as the drama progresses even she despairs her fate, suffering the consequences of her jealousy and loose tongue.Read full review... | ||
| 2-Oct-2012 Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts | Charles Roubaud's Il Trovatore from Canadian Opera Company | James Karas |
 What do you get when you have a woman being burnt on the stake and her daughter tosses a baby – the wrong baby – on the pyre? The correct answer is Giuseppe Verdi’s incredible melodrama Il Trovatore.
The Canadian Opera Company’s production (borrowed from Opéra de Marseille) eschews melodramatic displays but does provide some thrills. There are also a few gaffes but overall the production does credit to Verdi.
Read full review... | ||
| 29-Sep-2012 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion | Domingo's latest turn as baritone proves triumphant for LA Opera and Verdi | Matthew Richard Martinez |
 Almost any singer with Plácido Domingo’s résumé would be happily retired from the stage at age 71, but Domingo is obviously not any singer. With over 140 roles performed, the Spanish tenor’s legacy is unparalleled, and that legacy is still growing. Domingo’s addition of the baritone role Francesco Foscari in Verdi’s I due Foscari will undoubtedly cause cynics to roll their eyes. Hopefully there were some in the audience for this performance, as their skepticism proved to be unwarranted.Read full review... | ||
| 20-Sep-2012 Roy Thomson Hall | Toronto Symphony Orchestra makes 2012/13 season new with John Adams | Stanley Fefferman |
 The Shang Emperor of China had inscribed on his washbasin the admonition “Make it New”.
Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s 2012/13 season made it new by including in its first-night program a work by a living composer, Harmonielehre by the American John Adams. Maestro Peter Oundjian’s bold decision succeeded in pleasing the audience when Harmonielehre was performed after intermission, thus vindicating Oundjian’s vision seven years ago when he instituted a New Creations module into the yearly program.
Read full review... | ||
| 15-Sep-2012 AT&T Ballpark | Opera in the ballpark: Rigoletto at the home of the San Francisco Giants | Jeffery S. McMillan |
 The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD simulcasts to movie theaters all over the world have been one of the biggest stories in the opera world in recent years and an undoubted hit with opera fans. Whether the program’s audience-building potential is commensurate with its box office hauls, however, is still a matter of debate. San Francisco Opera has also invested in technology to connect with new audiences by making performances available in what they call Opera Vision.Read full review... | ||
| 8-Sep-2012 War Memorial Opera House | San Francisco Opera opens 90th season with Rigoletto | Jeffery S. McMillan |
 The San Francisco Opera, one of the big American houses that has exhibited commendable fiscal resourcefulness while maintaining its artistic standards, selected a conservative opener for its 90th season with a revival of its de Chirico-inspired production of Rigoletto. During these tough economic times, trotting out an old warhorse, by itself, is no strategy for the long-view, but the company introduced a twist to get the most out of Verdi's tale of vengeance.Read full review... | ||
| 8-Sep-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 76: A very special Last Night | Matthew Lynch |
 The Last Night of the Proms isn’t really a concert at all; it’s two very different concerts put on one after the other. The first is something like what we’re used to from a Prom, with big-name soloists performing alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus in world premières and classic works from the repertoire. The second is more of a pops concert, featuring the same orchestra, choir and soloists, but with classic British tunes on the programme, and singing along is highly encouraged.Read full review... | ||
| 1-Sep-2012 Großes Festspielhaus | Salzburg's first spiritual festival closes with Verdi's Requiem | Zwölftöner |
 Faith and glamour have bookended this year’s Salzburg Festival, a move met with incredulity in certain quarters and yet one not entirely alien to Austrian customs, if one looks to the 20 or so most glittering events of the Viennese ball season, which is promptly curtailed by Ash Wednesday (still observed by much of the population here with high Catholic asceticism).Read full review... | ||
| 12-Aug-2012 Hollywood Bowl | Verdi's Rigoletto at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil and Dudamel | Ted Ayala |
 A mid-19th-century Italian opera with the sound of the human voice front-and-center, and seemingly dependent on the trappings of the theater. If we want to keep the program conservative why not go with an opera by Mozart, Bizet, Wagner, or Weber instead? All of them used the orchestra with greater freedom and independence than we associate with Italian composers, many of whom composed for the orchestra as if it were little more than a giant guitar. Or so you would think.
Read full review... | ||
| 4-Aug-2012 Alice Busch Opera Theater | Glimmerglass' little Aida makes a huge impact | Gale Martin, operatoonity.com |
 You won’t see plumed horses, a procession of camels, or a hundred supernumeraries as standard bearers parading across the Glimmerglass stage. In fact, you have to step outside the Alice Busch Opera Theater to see any elephants at all, the animal most commonly associated with Aida, Verdi’s greatest grand opera. Two brown pachyderms, a mother and a baby, made from grapevine boughs, mark the southernmost entrance to the Festival grounds this season. If you must have elephants in your Aida, you’d best enjoy this pair before settling into your seat to watch the show.
Read full review... | ||
| 27-Jul-2012 National Theatre | La Traviata at the Munich OpernFestspiele | Capriccio, capricciomusic.blogspot.com |
 La Traviata is such a warhorse that we often forget how many issues it raises for presenting a staging that can convince us of what is in the first analysis a quite ludicrous story, despite Verdi's veristic intentions. That Violetta is so sympathetic, idealistic, noble and moral can strike one as hopelessly naïve and even patronising given her profession and background, but its very high status amongst Verdi's output speaks of its masterful dramatic thrust and powerful emotional arc, and, by no means least, its superb music.
Read full review... | ||
| 24-Jul-2012 Sydney Opera House: Opera Theatre | Latonia Moore shines in Sydney Aida | David Larkin |
.jpg) Virtually every reviewer of Aida mentions elephants, generally only to note their absence: the elephant not in the room, as it were. Like most others, the current Opera Australia production was lacking in pachyderms, but few of last night’s audience will have felt short-changed. We were treated to some of the most thrilling singing I have yet heard at the Sydney Opera House, in a production that was traditional but not unthinkingly so.
Read full review... | ||
| 24-Jul-2012 Holland Park Theatre | Verdi's Falstaff at Opera Holland Park | David Karlin |
 With Verdi's centenary coming up, his last opera Falstaff has had more attention than usual, with this production at Opera Holland Park following hot on the heels of Robert Carsen's new production at Covent Garden. I don't know whether OHP's director Annilese Miskimmon was aware of Carsen's production, but she certainly ended up with a similar aesthetic, set in twentieth century England with pastel-clad posh housewives and much brown clothing for the men.Read full review... | ||
| 12-Jul-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Shakespeare Sung: Otello at Covent Garden | Paul Kilbey |
 KENTON.jpg) Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito's Otello is renowned as one of the few truly successful Shakespearean operas, and while it's mostly a masterpiece on its own terms rather than Shakespeare's – countless scenes and characters are cut, and the very Verdian drinking song goes on far longer than you'd probably expect – there remains a hint of the brilliance of characterisation with which Shakespeare's play is filled. It is a true operatic tragedy, and Otello's decline is devastating in its effect.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-Jul-2012 Odeonsplatz | Un-Italian weather thwarts Bavarian Radio Symphony's "Notte Italiana" | Zerbinetta |
.jpg) An old proverb names Munich as the northernmost city in Italy. As odd as this may seem, it makes some sense when considering the arches of the mock-Italian loggia in Odeonsplatz, modeled after the one in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. It was fitting that this was the setting for the Klassik am Odeonsplatz's final concert, a so-called "Notte Italiana" ("Italian night"), featuring the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BRSO) conducted by Andris Nelsons, along with soprano Kristine Opolais and tenor Joseph Calleja.
Read full review... | ||
| 12-Jun-2012 War Memorial Opera House | Verdi's Attila returns to San Francisco… with a vengeance! | Jeffery S. McMillan |
 In an attempt to persuade Attila the Hun to spare Italy from the scorch and burn policy, the corrupt Roman general Ezio says, "Avrai tu l'universo, resti l'Italia a me," ("You can have the universe, but leave Italy for me"). The two warlords were not the only ones who stood to profit handsomely when Verdi’s Attila returned to San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House on Tuesday night in Gabriele Lavia’s new staging (a co-production with Milan's La Scala).Read full review... | ||
