William Burnett

Anatole France’s 1890 novel about the life of the historical Saint Thaïs, proved an irresistible subject to French composer Jules Massenet. The novel yielded two vividly drawn operatic characters. The first was Thaïs, a courtesan who lived in fifth century Alexandria, Egypt, but who renounced the sins of the world to seek eternal life. The … Read more

Edoard Lalo’s epic opera on a Breton myth – “Le Roi d”Ys” – has been missing from the core operatic repertory for decades. In America, it is basically unknown. Those opera-goers who think of it at all likely have recordings of Mylio’s enchanting aria Vainement, ma bien-aimée, and perhaps of the massive overture. There has not been … Read more

The Rossini festival in Pesaro, Italy, which has dedicated many years of scholarship to developing authentic scores of Rossini operas, commissioned a new Graham Vick production of the Italian version of Rossini’s final opera, “Guglielmo Tell”. (I had seen the French version – “Guillaume Tell” – twice at San Francisco Opera in the 1990s, from … Read more

The venerable Italian conductor Nello Santi at age 83 remains a favorite of Zurich Opera audiences, his appearances drawing sustained ovations [Below: Zurich Opera conductor Nello Santi; resized image of a publicity photograph, from www.orchestradellasvizzeraitaliana.ch.] Thus, it was with more than routine interest that I scheduled a performance of Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier” in Zurich, the first time … Read more

A traditional “Pique Dame” performance of Tchaikovsky’s  opera “Pique Dame” often has an episodic feel as it wanders through different elements of Saint Petersburg society. The opera explores the antics of boys playing at soldiering. It notes the opinion of crowds about the changing weather. It focuses on the spontaneous attempts at peasant dancing by young upper … Read more

Over the past year, German director Dieter Dorn has unveiled his new production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs”, created for the Grand Théâtre de Genève. I was able to schedule the final performance of the final opera of the cycle, “Götterdämmerung”, which gave me insight into Dorn’s realization of Wagner’s gargantuan work. [Below: German director … Read more

Robert Carsen’s famous production of Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” has again been revived at the Opéra National de Paris’ Bastille opera house. Carsen proved again that Bellini’s operatic version of the Romeo and Juliet story needs no staging gimmickry to be a theatrical triumph. [Below: Canadian production designer/stage director Robert Carsen; edited image … Read more

The Toronto performances of Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereux” were remarkable in so many ways that “historic” seems not too outlandish an adjective to apply. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky’s Elisabetta, created in the context of British Director Stephen Lawless’ now familiar trio of productions of operas based on stressful events consuming the English House of Tudor, proved to … Read more

The San Diego Opera revived its 2009 production of Massenet’s “Don Quichotte” (translated into the Spanish and English as  “Don Quixote”, the more familiar name for Cervantes’ caricature of the elderly would-be knight-errant). Massenet’s opera, loosely based on episodes suggested by Cervantes’ epic, was presented again as a vehicle for Ferruccio Furlanetto, arguably the pre-eminent contemporary … Read more

Last Fall, EuroArts issued the first in a series of six scheduled DVDs of performances by the San Francisco Opera at its home, the War Memorial Opera House. The performance is of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia”, starring Renée Fleming as Lucrezia, the Duchess of Ferrara. [Below: the cover of the brochure accompanying the “Lucrezia Borgia” DVDs.] … Read more

The Los Angeles Opera chose the Ides of March to unveil a new production of Donizetti’s most famous opera, “Lucia di Lammermoor”, conducted by the opera company’s Music Director James Conlon and starring Uzbekistan-born Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova and Albanian lyric tenor Saimir Pirgu. Coloratura Soprano Albina Shagimuratova’s Lucia In this most lustrous of the … Read more

The Lyric Opera, that commissioned Scottish production designer Sir David McVicar, to create a new production of Dvorak’s “Rusalka”, also requested that he revise his production of Mozart’s opera seria “La Clemenza di Tito” for presentation on the Lyric stage. Adding to the luster of the evening was the special attention to the work given by … Read more

i’Since I last reported on one of David McVicar’s masterful operatic productions [See 21st Century Verdi: Hvorostovsky, Ciofi, Kim, Aceto in McVicar’s Illuminating “Rigoletto” – ROH Covent Garden, October 11, 2010],, the Scottish stage director has been knighted as part of the Queen Elizabeth II’s 2012 Birthday Honors. The Lyric Opera of Chicago has mounted his … Read more

The San Diego Opera mounted Verdi’s “Ballo in Maschera [A Masked Ball]” for Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, who returned to San Diego after his 2010 debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s “La Boheme”, [Below: Piotr Beczala as King Gustavus; edited image of a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.] Beczala was joined by … Read more

The Los Angeles Opera revived Francesca Zambello’s now classic interpretation of Britten’s grandest operatic work, “Billy Budd”, about the struggles of Good and Evil aboard a British Warship during the Wars of the French Revolution, [Below: Francesca Zambello; edited image, based on a B.  A. Nilsson photograph from www.metroland.net.] Returning to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion … Read more