Reviews, appreciation and analysis of all things opera
The following interview took place in the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. The facilitation of this interview by the San Francisco Opera is gratefully acknowledged. [Below: Baritone Brian Mulligan, resized image, based on a copyrighted Peter Ross photograph, courtesy of Brian-Mulligan.com.] Wm: You grew up in Endicott in South Central New York … Read more
In a previous post in the Quests and Anticipations series, I gave my arguments for considering the Italian opera composers Rossini and Bellini together, and highlighted United States performances of their operas in various parts of the United States. See the highlighted operas for 2012, which included some exotic fare, and the subsequent performance reviews at In … Read more
The following interview took place in the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. The facilitation of this interview by the San Francisco Opera is gratefully acknowledged. Wm: You are from a musical family of Hawai’i, and both of your parents are musicians. QK: Yes, I am. My folks had met singing in college. In … Read more
Mariusz Kwiecien, the great Polish baritone whose signature is the title role in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” [see Kwiecien Excels in McVicar’s Dark Side “Don Giovanni” – S. F. June 2, 2007]. brought the title role of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski’s “King Roger”, that he previously has sung in Paris and Madrid, to the 2012 Santa Fe Opera … Read more
Santa Fe Opera Festival atmosphere is usually most felicitous, the New Mexico weather almost always well-behaved. Yet, if one attends enough Santa Fe performances, there will be times when the term “atmosphere” has more than metaphorical significance. Distant lightning can supplement the lighting director’s design, as it did two nights earlier at a performance of … Read more