The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: Opera Review
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The last performance of Ligeti’s Le Grande Macabre this season was this afternoon. I must admit, I only went out of force of habit, as I had attended a performance of this the previous month and was duly unimpressed. Ligeti’s music is cacophonous, the libretto is absurd, and the production involved cross-dressing, spousal abuse, Venus…
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Sara Jobin conducted this particular performance of Tosca, and it was her San Francisco Opera debut, and the first time a woman has conducted during the main season of this opera house. The production is one owned by San Francisco Opera, and is revived every two or three years. Soprano Carol Vaness has the dubious…
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The alternate cast for San Francisco Opera’s La Traviata was stunningly good. The perennial favorite, soprano Ruth Ann Swenson, was replaced by Mary Dunleavy in the last two performances. Swenson is very precise, her tone is extremely sweet and bell-like. Dunleavy is perhaps more vital, her voice is very strong. Baritone Željko Lučić sang beautifully…
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Oakland Opera Theater is just finishing a run of performances of Philip Glass’ Akhnaten at the Oakland Metro. This was the West Coast premiere of this work which dates from 1984. Director Ellen Sebastian Chang did not have much to work with, yet she was able to pull it off somehow, setting the opera both…
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Britten’s Billy Budd returned to San Francisco Opera for the second time in twenty years. Willy Decker’s sedate and elegant production was designed by Wolfgang Gussmann and staged by Sabine Hartmannshenn. The music was certainly more charming than Britten’s work Death in Venice, particularly the absurd duet "Don’t Like The French!," whose words include "hoppity-skippity…
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Stephen Wadsworth's production of Lohengrin at Seattle Opera was dull. The set, designed by Thomas Lynch, was angular and somewhat tawdry. The worst part was definitely the end, when the swan appeared. It was this over-sized robot, reminiscent of a Disneyland character. The best part may have been soprano Jane Eaglen, who is certainly more…
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The Merola Opera Program is an 11-week summer program of performance and study under the auspices of the San Francisco Opera. The program culminates in two fully staged and costumed productions, in this case, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. The two performances of the former production were held at the Yerba…
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Ferruccio Busoni’s Doctor Faustus ended the 2003-2004 season at San Francisco Opera. It was a co-production with Staatsoper Stuttgart, which was immediately apparent, as the set looked very much like the inside of a laboratory. I felt I was suddenly transported back to Munich! The music was unmemorable, neither pleasing nor displeasing. Rodney Gilfry’s voice…
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The saving grace of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen is this opera’s brevity, a mere 1 hour and 45 minutes. San Francisco Opera’s co-production with the Bregenzer Festspiele and Grand Théâtre de Genève closed Thursday, 1. July 2004. The set and costumes were all quite bright, something out of a fairytale. I’ll admit that…
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Mark Lamos’ 1996 production of La Bohème is quite beautiful. Michael Yeargan’s set is nearly perfect, the garrett opens up nicely into the Latin Quarter so that Act I transitions seamlessly into Act II. If only they could have done the same with Acts III and IV, the gorgeous Act III set for the Barrière…
The Opera Tattler 