Otsego Lake, the setting for the Glimmerglass Festival. The Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York is my last stop on my summer travels. This is only the second season under general and artistic director Francesca Zambello and is filled with interesting repertoire in unusual productions. Last night was Jean-Baptiste Lully’s ARMIDE, first performed in 1686, [...]
Last night was the second of two apprentice concerts showcasing the young singers who participate in this extraordinary program. These forty young artists are selected from across the country (I was told that this year there were nearly one thousand applicants) and last night’s program was every bit as interesting and exciting as the first [...]
Last night’s performance of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hoffmannsthal’s ARABELLA was utterly delightful. Wonderfully directed by British director Tim Albery (who returns to Dallas in April to stage THE ASPERN PAPERS) and conducted with romantic sweep by Sir Andrew Davis, this was Santa Fe Opera at its best. Long known for its tradition of [...]
I was invited yesterday to a small luncheon being given in honor of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who you may know is a huge opera fan. I was delighted to discover that she had toured the Winspear Opera House last year when she was in Dallas for a speaking engagement at SMU, but [...]
Last night’s performance of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski’s 1926 opera KING ROGER was one of those magical nights in the theatre that we all hope to experience but which in reality happens so rarely. Everything about the evening was extraordinary, including the piece itself, which I had never heard “live” before. The libretto is enigmatic, [...]
The interior of the Santa Fe Opera House just before a performance of Bizet’s THE PEARL FISHERS. Last night didn’t start off too well. I had met one of my artist manager colleagues for an early dinner before the opera (his client, Eric Cutler was the tenor in the performance of PEARL FISHERS we were [...]
I am convinced that Santa Fe must be a suburb of Dallas (or maybe it is the other way around?) but it seems as if I have run into half of the people I know since I got here two days ago! Last night was the first of two Apprentice Concerts that showcase the aspiring [...]
Act I of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of CARMEN at the Arena di Verona. Yesterday I went to a newly opened opera museum in an old palazzo that has been funded by a support organization of the Arena di Verona. The first part of the exhibit focused on the music publishing house of Ricordi, and featured [...]
The crowd arriving for the performance at the Arena di Verona. Every opera lover should attend a performance of AIDA once in their lifetime at the Arena di Verona. The sheer spectacle is something out of an old Cecil B. DeMille epic, and if it wasn’t a cast of thousands then it was at least [...]
Interior of the palco reale (Royal Box) at Teatro la fenice in Venice. The production last night of Donizetti’s L’ELISIR D’AMORE was delightful on many levels, if somewhat old fashioned. There was a vague attempt by stage director Bepi Morassi at being “modern” with the action set as an “opera within the opera.” The curtain [...]
