Reviews, appreciation and analysis of all things opera
Teams of artists from Italy and the United States collaborated in creating the San Francisco Opera’s imaginative new production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”. Team Italy consisted of Conductor Nicola Luisotti, Soprano Serena Farnocchia singing Donna Elvira (her San Francisco Opera debut season), and four artists for whom this production was their American debut – Basso … Read more
As the world moves closer to the bicentennial year of the birth of opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, performances of his great 1875 “Requiem” memorializing Italian poet and patriot Alessandro Manzoni, will be part of the Verdi observances of the world’s great centers of European culture. Manzoni’s most famous work I Promessi Sposi strongly influenced the … Read more
Note from William: This post continues my series of observances of historic performances that I attended at San Francisco Opera during the general directorship of Kurt Herbert Adler. This is the first of six such observances of performances from the company’s 1961 Fall season. Even as an entering college Freshman, I had a taste for … Read more
This is my third review of a performance of the John Pascoe production of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” (see The Donizetti Revival, Second Stage: Radvanovsky, Grigolo in Pascoe’s WNO “Lucrezia Borgia” – November 17, 2008 and Fleming, Fabiano, Frizza Fuel San Francisco Opera’s Flaming, Fulfilling First “Lucrezia Borgia” – September 23, 2011) and the second one during the … Read more