Review: Costello, Pérez, Grimsley and Mulligan Brilliant in Spectacularly Staged “Faust” – San Diego Opera, April 23, 2011

The San Diego Opera, which last year brought together the husband and wife team of Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez in an elegant production of Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette” (see Costello, Pérez in Passionately Romantic “Romeo et Juliette” – San Diego Opera, March 13, 2010), triumphantly presented their return as Faust and Marguerite in “Faust”, Gounod’s blockbuster hit opera … Read more

Dropping in on the Adler years: A bit more on the 1979 season . . .

After sampling another batch of historic broadcasts, Arthur Bloomfield our guest commentator (and historian of the San Francisco Opera) writes: When the Adler Years were settled into their cruising altitude back in the 1970s  there was usually a frisson when that earlierday auteur director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle came up with a new production. And there were … Read more