Month: October 2005

We were in Paris for eight days, during every day of which the Opéra Bastille performed “La Boheme” with alternating casts. Although all the performances were sold out, the concierge at our hotel (the Park Hyatt – Paris Vendôme) was able to secure us very nice orchestra seats for the cast headed by the Rodolfo … Read more

My wife and I attended new productions of “Forza del Destino” in Zurich, Switzerland on October 19 and San Francisco, California on November 20, 2005. The production’s destiny The new production was staged by French director Nicolas Joel, familiar to San Francisco Opera audiences as first a collaborator with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, then as a stage … Read more

In September, the San Francisco Opera mounted director Edward Hastings and set designer Robert Innes Hopkins’ realization of Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri” in a production borrowed from the Santa Fe Opera. The Hastings/Hopkins’ production of Janacek’s “The Cunning Little Vixen” was seen in San Francisco in 2004. “L’Italiana” was, of course, Rossini’s first big hit, … Read more