The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: Opera Review
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Stephen Lawless' production of Il Trovatore at Los Angeles Opera, designed by Benoit Dugardyn, was rather dark and oppressive. Thankfully, the principal singers were adequate and the music is wonderful, so the performance came off well. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky has pretty voice that is neither piercing nor shrill. Mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick was strong and clear…
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Last March I saw Seattle Opera's production of Ariadne auf Naxos. Dahlstrom's set was depressing, especially the prologue which looked like we were behind the scenes in the McCaw Hall itself. I hope Jane Eaglen has a nicer changing room though, not one marked by a blue circle and white icon that characterizes a women's…
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Staatsoper Stuttgart’s production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk came to San Francisco for six performances last November. The set was stark and geometric. The choreography was highly artificial and omnipresent, at times it was effective. Soprano Solveig Kringelborn was excellent as the lead, Katerina Lvovna Ismailova. Her voice was powerful, but she had good control…
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Les cités nouvellesOù Dieu me guidaNe me semblaient pas belles,Tu n’étais pas là;Tout durant l’absenceEst indifférence. Fromental Halévy’s La Juive, a grand opera in five acts, premiered in 23. February 1835. Günter Krämer’s production just finishing up now at the Metropolitan Opera first premiered on 23. October 1999 at the Wiener Staatsoper. I attended the…
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Way back in November 2003 I attended a couple performances of Don Carlos at San Francisco Opera. They did a five act French version, which is unusual. The two leads, Marina Mescheriakova as Elisabeth and Mark Duffin as Don Carlos, were not particularly impressive. The former was shrill and stiff, the latter was too quiet.…
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The Münchner Festspiele and the 2002-2003 opera season at the Bayerische Staatsoper ended with a performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. August Everding’s production from 1979 was undoubtedly the best I have seen with this opera company, and naturally, they are getting a new one for next time. Peter Schneider conducted impeccably. The music…
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Bayerische Staatoper’s production of Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria had almost no redeeming qualities. If they find Baroque operas so boring they shouldn’t bother putting them on. It shows very little respect to be making Monteverdi’s opera into a farce. It was so bad that even I could not sit through it twice, though I…
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Tickets to yesterday evening’s performance of Lucia di Lammermoor completely sold-out, presumably because Edita Gruberova was singing the title role. She is in her 25th year of singing Lucia, and she is quite remarkable. Her voice can be the very embodiment of icy perfection. The audience screamed and clapped after "Quando rapito in estasi" for…
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I had the dubious pleasure of seeing David Alden’s new production of Rodelinda twice within a fortnight. It was more tame than I expected, no giant robot lab rats, no walking dentures. Thankfully, there was plenty of cigarette smoking, a little drunken staggering, and naturally, things were thrown. Also, five shots were fired from a…
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