The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: Opera Review
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This evening's performance of Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Bayerische Staatsoper seemed to be fraught with various issues. Petia Petrova, the mezzo set to sing the title role, was indisposed, and Anna Caterina Antonacci sang in her stead. Baritone Martin Gantner had hurt his foot recently, and was unable to run about as the choreography…
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The Ides of March performance of Verdi’s Aida had a stunningly hideous staging. This production premiered the 19. January 1996, and was acclaimed by critics as "striking." John Fiore conducted adequately, the orchestra was together with the singers for the most part. There were horns playing onstage at one point, and they did not have…
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The Bayeriche Staatsoper's production of Don Giovanni had excellent singers but a disappointing staging. Thus far, all the productions of Mozart operas there have been fairly ugly visually, although the production teams have all been different. Ivor Bolton's conducting was not impressive, the orchestra was not exactly together during the overture, and the singers and…
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It was asserted to me that Hemingway’s novel Across the River and Into the Trees was less bad than Da Ponte’s libretto to Così fan Tutte. I find it a very bizarre comparison, but find myself unable to judge any opera libretti against actual literature. Voltaire put this best: Anything too stupid to be spoken…
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The Bavarian State Opera performance of Il Trovatore yesterday night was perhaps the most traditional production I have seen there to date. Zubin Mehta conducted quite well. Luca Ronconi’s staging was conservative, it appears to be the only opera she has staged here. My only complaint was the gratuitous use of a scrim to separate…
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Last night’s performance of Bellini’s I Puritani at the Bavarian State Opera was quite good. Friedrich Haider conducted competently, though the orchestra was, on occasion, rather louder than some of the singers. Also, sometimes the timing appeared off between singer and orchestra. But the blame more likely lies with the singers than the conductor. Jonathan…
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Die Entführung aus dem Serail is one of my favorite operas, though in truth, this is more due to my familiarity with the music than anything else. Not to say that Mozart is not incredible, but it just happens that I have seen this opera more than any other, and knowing it this well only…
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The production of Serse at the Bavarian State Opera was hideous. When one is staging an opera, which does, in fact, involve music, and thus, sound, perhaps one should think about how the sounds that various parts of the production may distract from the music at hand. All sorts of supernumeraries stomped here and there…
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A production of Händel's Alcina from Stuttgart opened yesterday at San Francisco Opera. It garnered enthusiastic and cheerful (perhaps that was just me) booing at the end when the production designer, Anna Viebrock, came out for her curtain call. What a self-indulgent, pretentious, inaccessible staging! It wasn't so much the modern dress, or the little…
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San Francisco Opera’s current production of Leoš Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová starts off with words projected on the scrim, from Alexander Ostrovsky’s The Storm, on which the libretto of Káťa is based. This is during the overture, which could not be more than 5 minutes long. I found the staging to be quite ugly, something about…
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