Reviews, appreciation and analysis of all things opera
At various times in Calendar year 2013, I have posted remembrances of each of the 11 live opera performances that I saw (all at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco) 50 years ago in 1963. Remarkably, all but two of these 11 live performances were of operas that I reviewed 50 years later … 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 last of ten such observances of performances from the company’s 1963 Fall season. San Francisco Opera’s final 1963 Saturday night series performance was a … Read more
San Francisco Opera launched a new Leni Bauer-Ecsy production of Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” as a vehicle for Leontyne Price. James McCracken was her Don Alvaro in a stirring performance led by Italian Conductor Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. [Below: the Leni Bauer-Ecsy sets for the monastery scene in “La Forza del Destino”; edited image, based on … Read more
The next offering on my 1963 Saturday night San Francisco Opera subscription was a revival of the acclaimed George Jenkins production of Mozart’s “Cosi fan Tutte” that had been my first performance of a Mozart opera seven seasons before [See Cosi Fan Tutte – October 25, 1956.] Elizabeth Schwarzkopf was again Fiordiligi, joined by three artists … Read more
As a college sophomore, in my third year as a subscriber to the San Francisco Opera, I had already experienced Bellini’s “Sonnambula” with Joan Sutherland, Verdi’s “Aida” with Leontyne Price, Regina Resnik and Sandor Konya, and Reri Grist, Cesare Valletti and Hermann Prey in Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” (I also had purchased seats off my … Read more
Beginning with calendar year 2006 (the year that the current San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley assumed his post), I have given letter grades to each of San Francisco Opera’s productions during that calendar year. I have only done this for San Francisco Opera productions, because I have attended at least one performance of … Read more
This interview was conducted at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, with much-appreciated facilitation by the San Francisco Opera. Wm: You were raised in New York City, but your mother is Argentinean. How did your parents meet? IL: My mother was born in Argentina, but moved to the United States in the 1960s … Read more
Two nights after my first live performance ever of Puccini’s “Tosca”, I returned to my regular Saturday night series for the fourth offering of the San Francisco Opera’s 1963 Saturday night series – Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades”. Only the second Russian opera (after Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” that I had seen presented by the San Francisco … Read more
Note from William: In celebration of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the San Diego Opera, I will be re-printing program notes that the opera company commissioned me to write. The first of these, re-printed with the kind permission of the copyright holder, the San Diego Opera, will be the program notes for their March 2010 performances … Read more
On October 3, 1963, I attended my first performance ever of Puccini’s “Tosca” at the San Francisco Opera, in which Leontyne Price appeared in the title role, with Hungarian tenor Sandor Konya as Cavaradossi and Australian baritone John Shaw as Scarpia. Twelve days earlier I had seen Price, Konya and Shaw in Verdi’s “Aida” [See 50 … Read more