Opera News articles from February 1998

Opera News archives from February 1998

La Div-ina. (soprano Barbara Bonney)(Interview)(Cover Story)
February 14, 1998... "I never wanted to be an opera singer," insists Barbara Bonney, "it just kind of happened. In fact, if I could be the next Elly Ameling, it would more than thrill me." Considering that Bonney's international career has included more than fifty...

Wild thing: the bizarre character of the gypsy Azucena, drives the plot in 'Il Trovatore.'
February 14, 1998... Virtually alone among Giuseppe Verdi's works, Il Trovatore runs like a thoroughbred. It breaks fast out of the gate and charges to the finish line, where all its romantic agony and Gothic horror come together at last. This is an instinctively...

Night and day: to spend a little time with June Anderson is to see both her sunny and stormy sides. (opera singer to appear in February broadcast of 'I Trovatore; in the role of Lenora)(Interview)
February 14, 1998... June Anderson is impatient, eager to get back to work after a prolonged summer vacation, irritated by her reputation as a "difficult" performer. She is tired of vocal typecasting. And as she looks ahead to her first Leonora in the Met's Il...

Canadian troubadour: tenor Richard Margison takes on 'Il Trovatore' at the Met.(Interview)
February 14, 1998... In June 1996, the Japanese record magazine In Tune was already, in its cover story, calling tenor Richard Margison "Another Canadian Comet." Ben Heppner is the other north-of-the-border supernova, and there is no rivalry between the two,...

Bloodline: how Azucena gave birth to the 'Verdi mezzo.' (mezzo voice role of Azucena in the opera, 'Il Trovatore' created because Verdi was thwarted by his librettist Salvatore Cammarano)
February 14, 1998... When Verdi set out to write Il Trovatore, in 1851, he was ready to continue the kind of innovation he had initiated with Rigoletto, to write "something original and out of the ordinary." To his librettist, Salvatore Cammarano, he wrote, "If in...

Il Trovatore. (broadcast of February 14, 1998)(includes related articles)
February 14, 1998... THE CAST (in order of vocal apperrance) Ferrando bass, Dimiri Kavrakos Inez mezzo, Jane Shaulis Leonora soprano, June Anderson Count di Luna bariton, Juan Pons Manrico tenor, Richard Margison...

Die Zauberflote. (broadcast of February 21, 1998)(includes related articles)
February 14, 1998... THE CAST (in order of vocal appearance) Tamino tenor, Frank Lopardo Three Ladies sop., Christine Goerke mezzo, Jane Bunnell mezzo, Judith Christin Papageno ...

Verdi: Don Carlo.(Galina Gorchakova, Olga Borodina, Sylvia McNair, Richard Margison, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Robert Lloyd, Ildebarndo D'Arcangelo, Royal Opera, Bernard Haitink)
February 14, 1998... Bernard Haitink joins Carlo Maria Giulini (EMI), Georg Solti (London) and James Levine (Sony) in having recorded the five-act (Modena) version of Don Carlo, as opposed to Herbert von Karajan and Riccardo Muti (both EMI), who opt for the...

Verdi: Giovanna d'Arco.(Katia Ricciarelli, Flaviano Labo, Mario Zanasi, Carlo Franci)
February 14, 1998... Bernard Haitink joins Carlo Maria Giulini (EMI), Georg Solti (London) and James Levine (Sony) in having recorded the five-act (Modena) version of Don Carlo, as opposed to Herbert von Karajan and Riccardo Muti (both EMI), who opt for the...

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto.(Boris Christoff)
February 14, 1998... Live from Venice, the Mondo Musica album, sadly deficient in bass, is billed as a February 1996 performance -- neatest trick of the week, since three of the singers were dead at least ten years earlier. One assumes this is a misprint for 1966....

Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore.(Angela Gheorghiu, Elena Dan, Roberto Alagna, Roberto Scaltriti, Simone Alaimo, Opera de Lyons, Evelino Pido)
February 14, 1998... This new Elisir is fresh and peppy Its chief asset is the Dulcamara of Simone Alaimo, who brings a genuine singing upper voice to a role usually barked by buffo basses. (The part lies quite high, encompassing numerous and sometimes sustained...

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto.(Sujung Kim, David Sabella, Virginia Opera, Peter Mark)
February 14, 1998... Live from Venice, the Mondo Musica album, sadly deficient in bass, is billed as a February 1996 performance -- neatest trick of the week, since three of the singers were dead at least ten years earlier. One assumes this is a misprint for 1966....

Donizetti: Rosamonda d'Inghilterra. (Renee Fleming, Nelly Miricioiu, Diana Montague, Bruce Ford, Alaistair Miles, London Philharmonic Orchestra, David Parry)
February 14, 1998... Renee Fleming is amazing as the sorely beset Rosmonda. Her sound is gorgeous, and she can do anything with it. She has a magical float and sweetness in lyrical music. Her first aria, with its many trills, is, impeccably vocalized, while her...

The Castrato in Mozart's Time.(Aris Christofellis, Ensemble Seicento-Novecento)
February 14, 1998... Les Castrats au Temps de Mozart is an intriguing program, with rare arias from Johann Christian Bach's Adriano in Siria. Cherubini's Ifigenia in Aulide, Gazzaniga's Perseo, Jommelli's Armida Abbandonata and Rauzzini's L'Eroe Cinese. There are...

Mahler Songs.(Thomas Hampson)
February 14, 1998... Thomas Hampson further consolidates his reputation as a lieder singer of uncommon excellence. All three of these releases are outstanding, but highest marks go to the program of Schumann's Heine songs, including the Op. 24 Liederkreis and the...

Schubert: Winterreise.(Thomas Hampson, Wolfgang Sawallisch)
February 14, 1998... Thomas Hampson further consolidates his reputation as a lieder singer of uncommon excellence. All three of these releases are outstanding, but highest marks go to the program of Schumann's Heine songs, including the Op. 24 Liederkreis and the...

Schumann: Heine Songs.(Thomas Hampson, Wolfgang Sawallisch)
February 14, 1998... Thomas Hampson further consolidates his reputation as a lieder singer of uncommon excellence. All three of these releases are outstanding, but highest marks go to the program of Schumann's Heine songs, including the Op. 24 Liederkreis and the...

Memories of Love: Russian Songs.(Galina Gorchakova, Larissa Gergieva)
February 14, 1998... Galina Gorchakova wraps her smoky, voluptuous soprano around a garland of Russian romances, to enchanting effect. These lullabies, love lyrics and farewells are shot through with ripe Slavic melancholy, but the purposeful edge of the soprano's...

Schubert Songs.(Anne Sofie Von Otter)
February 14, 1998... Anne Sofie von Otter's Schubert CD shows singer, composer and pianist at the top of their form. The mezzo has it all -- musicality, language sensitivity, narrative urgency, a voice that holds a seemingly infinite variety of color and mood....

Schubert Songs.(Christine Schafer)
February 14, 1998... Anne Sofie von Otter's Schubert CD shows singer, composer and pianist at the top of their form. The mezzo has it all -- musicality, language sensitivity, narrative urgency, a voice that holds a seemingly infinite variety of color and mood....

Songs.(Karita Mattila)
February 14, 1998... Anne Sofie von Otter's Schubert CD shows singer, composer and pianist at the top of their form. The mezzo has it all -- musicality, language sensitivity, narrative urgency, a voice that holds a seemingly infinite variety of color and mood....

Hagen: Songs.(Susan Crowder, Sara Stern, Bradley Moore)
February 14, 1998... Daron Hagen, whose Frank Lloyd Wright opera Shining Brow was given a successful premiere in Madison in 1993, is represented here by four song cycles, recorded by soprano Susan Crowder, flutist Sara Stern and pianist Bradley Moore. In three of...

Complete Colombia Recordings.(Ljuba Welitsch)
February 14, 1998... Ljuba Welitsch's account of "Im Abendrot," fourth of Strauss' Four Last Songs, is reason enough to own Sony's marvelous two-CD set. It's late Welitsch (1953), and she's accompanied at the piano (superbly) by Paul Ulanowsky. Which is more...

Complete Decca Recordings.(Ljuba Welitsch)
February 14, 1998... Ljuba Welitsch's account of "Im Abendrot," fourth of Strauss' Four Last Songs, is reason enough to own Sony's marvelous two-CD set. It's late Welitsch (1953), and she's accompanied at the piano (superbly) by Paul Ulanowsky. Which is more...

Strauss, R.: Salome Final Scene.(Ljuba Welitsch, Herbert von Karajan)
February 14, 1998... Ljuba Welitsch's account of "Im Abendrot," fourth of Strauss' Four Last Songs, is reason enough to own Sony's marvelous two-CD set. It's late Welitsch (1953), and she's accompanied at the piano (superbly) by Paul Ulanowsky. Which is more...

Arias, Scenes.(Anna Moffo)
February 14, 1998... Anna Moffo's wide-ranging young voice was improbably beautiful yet instantly recognizable: there was always a surprising dark underlay in her timbre. One may feel the support is not deep enough when she moves upward and doesn't have an ideally...

Arias, Songs.(Robert Merrill)
February 14, 1998... Anna Moffo's wide-ranging young voice was improbably beautiful yet instantly recognizable: there was always a surprising dark underlay in her timbre. One may feel the support is not deep enough when she moves upward and doesn't have an ideally...

Arias, Songs.(Jon Vickers)
February 14, 1998... Anna Moffo's wide-ranging young voice was improbably beautiful yet instantly recognizable: there was always a surprising dark underlay in her timbre. One may feel the support is not deep enough when she moves upward and doesn't have an ideally...

Weill: Die Sieben Todsunden.(Teresa Stratas, Opera de Lyons, Kent Nagano)
February 14, 1998... Kurt Weill's "ballet with song" The Seven Deadly Sins -- here paired with another work he wrote in 1933, the Second Symphony -- has suffered many revisions, chiefly from Lotte Lenya, who pitched the solo part down as much as a fourth.....

Weill: Lady in the Dark.(Rise Stevens, John Reardon, Adolph Green, Lehman Engel)
February 14, 1998... Before the imminent release of London's National Theatre recording, you may wish to savor what was (c. 1963) the main nearly complete studio version of Weill's Lady in the Dark. Weill and Ira Gershwin's minioperas are the lengthy dream...

Roth: Their Thought and Back Again. (Celeste Tavera, Elan String Quartet)
February 14, 1998... If you like your musical works to fall into clearly defined categories, Michael Roth's Their Thought and Back Again is not for you. Conceived for a dance company, it features two singers -- an opera soprano and a Broadway-belting alto. And...

Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito.(Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 14, 1998... NEW YORK On November 26 the Metropolitan Opera revived La Clemenza di Tito, led with warmth and dramatic fervor by James Levine, who has pledged all Mozart's major operas in the Met repertory. Not everyone appreciates Clemenza, which at...

Verdi: La Traviata.(Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
February 14, 1998... PHILADELPHIA Offstage drama added some excitement to the opening night of Opera Company of Philadelphia's La Traviata at the Academy of Music (Nov. 10). Susan Patterson (Violetta) and Gordon Gietz (Alfredo), both kept out of rehearsal by...

Puccini: Tosca.(Bob Carr Performing Arts Center, Orlando, Florida)
February 14, 1998... ORLANDO It may be possible to justify updating Tosca to the 1930s, but it would help to have the courage of one's convictions. There was more information about Nicolette Molnar's concept for Orlando Opera's presentation in the program...

Mozart: Don Giovanni.(Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
February 14, 1998... Florida Grand Opera's earthy Don Giovanni needed only hotter voices to go with the steaminess onstage (Dec. 4) at the Broward Center. As directed by John Pascoe, who also designed the darkly attractive production (from Michigan Opera Theatre),...

Leoncavallo: Pagliacci.(Tivoli Theatre, Chattanooga, Tennessee)
February 14, 1998... Creative stage direction by Albert Sherman highlighted a fine Pagliacci at Chattanooga Opera (seen Nov. 15 at the Tivoli Theatre). The prologue opened onto a well-choreographed village scene, in which a large chorus of adults and children managed...

Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress.(Clowes Memorial Hall, Indianapolis, Indiana)
February 14, 1998... Indianapolis Opera, in whose repertory twentieth-century opera has not been prominent, took a calculated risk in programing The Rake's Progress (Clowes Memorial Hall, Nov. 21). It was well worth it. Though Stravinsky's neoclassical music is cool...

Stuart: The Little Thieves of Bethlehem.(Third Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York)
February 14, 1998... Billed as "a Christmas opera for all ages" and coproduced by Opera Theatre of Rochester and VM Music, Paul Stuart's The Little Thieves of Bethlehem received its world premiere (Dec. 7) in the Third Presbyterian Church. Essentially a miracle...

Verdi: Macbeth.(Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy)
February 14, 1998... A massive, tilted, gyrating cube dominated La Scala's stage in Graham Vick's season-opening production of Verdi's Macbeth, forcing soloists, chorus and dancing Witches to the front of the stage and enabling the much applauded star of the show --...

Wagner: Die Walkure.(Helsinki, Finland)
February 14, 1998... With two operas now completed, Gotz Friedrich's new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen for Finnish National Opera may well prove to be his best yet. Die Walkure (seen Nov. 24) again demonstrated this Ring veteran's ability to place modernistic...

Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges.(Bolshoi Theater, Moscow, Russia)
February 14, 1998... Peter Ustinov's new production of The Love for Three Oranges brought the Bolshoi Theater welcome relief from the usual reports of administrative wrangling and sagging artistic standards. Efforts by dancer/choreographer Vladimir Vassiliev,...

Busoni: Doktor Faust.(Lyons, France)
February 14, 1998... Of the many musical settings of Faust -- lieder, symphonic poems, cantatas and operas -- Gounod's is the best-loved and most frequently performed. It is also among the weakest. Little in its smoothly crafted pathos or jollity comes anywhere...

On Stage, Off Stage: A Memoir.
February 14, 1998... Regine Crespin, one of the leading sopranos of her era, was among the very few French singers to be prominent in opera internationally after the war. The instantly recognizable timbre of her voice, with its innate suggestion of sweetness,...

The Last Prodigy: A Biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
February 14, 1998... Because Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) committed the capital sin of writing Hollywood film scores, music historians and critics tend to be dismissive of him. Much of his music is finally being recorded, but live performances in this...

Crossing the pond. (opera and opera houses are international but not cosmopolitan, each has a local flavor of its own and stage directors must know this)(Coda:)(Brief Article)(Column)
February 14, 1998... People make the mistake of thinking opera is cosmopolitan. It isn't. Painting is cosmopolitan: a painting looks the same, wherever you see it. Opera is international, but it isn't cosmopolitan. Plop an opera house down in the city of your...

The secret of Samson's strength: the international repertory has welcomed few French operas, so why has Saint Saens' masterpiece kept its hold? ('Samson et Delila')
February 28, 1998... If you were to tell a French operagoer of Saint-Saens' time that Samson et Dalila would establish itself as a hardy perennial in the twentieth-century repertory, he would drop his monocle and utter one of those distinctive French sounds of...

Miss Gorr to you. (opera singer Rita Gorr)
February 28, 1998... At seventy-two, Rita Gorr is still singing Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Mme. de Croissy in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmlites and the grandmother in Falla's La Vida Breve. For a career to have lasted so long is remarkable; to find a singer...

Song of the Orient: Saint Saens' 'Salomon et Delila' came along at just the right time - when Europe was under the spell of all things Eastern.
February 28, 1998... "Tonality... is in the throes of death. Exclusive use of major and minor modes is over. Ancient modes are reentering the scene... the immense variety of Oriental modes is invading art. All this will inject new life into worn-out melody;...

Shearing Samson. (designer Richard Hudson who designed sets for the Broadway play, 'Lion King,' debuts at the Met with a new 'Samson et Dalila')(Cover Story)
February 28, 1998... The revolution in British design during the 1980s and '90s may be one of the lasting cultural legacies of the period, long after such ostensibly newsworthy phenomena as Britain's mega-musicals have had their day. With scant regard for the...

Tracey Welborn. (tenor from South Carolina made his debut in 1990 in Donizetti 'La Filles du Regiment)(Sound Bites)(Brief Article)
February 28, 1998... Tracey Welborn is every inch the Southern gentleman. From the drawl that betrays his North Carolina roots to his impeccable manners, the thirty-six-year-old tenor exudes grace and good breeding. So it's perfect fit when he sings such innately...

Samson et Delila. (Broadcast of February 28, 1998)(includes related articles)
February 28, 1998... THE STORY ACT I. In a public square in Gaza, after a group of Hebrews pray to God for relief from their bondage to the Philistines, Samson stands out from the crowd and rebukes them for lack of faith ("Arretez, o mes freres!"). When his...

Madama Butterfly. (Broadcast of March 7, 1998)(includes related articles)
February 28, 1998... ACT I. On a flowering terrace above Nagasaki harbor, U.S. Navy lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker, Goro, who has procured him servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madarna Butterfly. The...

Weber: Oberon.(Inga Nielsen, Vesselina Kasarova, Peter Seiffert, Deon van der Walt, Bo Skovhus, Berlin Radio Chorus, Berlin German Symphony, Marek Janowski)
February 28, 1998... Nielsen, Kasarova, Seiffert, Van der Walt, Skovhus, Berlin Radio Chorus, Berlin German Symphony, Janowski. Libretto & translation. BMG/RCA 09026-68505 (2) This third commercial recording of Carl Maria von Weber's last opera marks a step...

Humperdinck: Die Heirat wider Willen.(Simone Kermes, Lena Lootens, Nils Giesecke, Rhenish Philharmonic, Christian Kluttig)
February 28, 1998... Kermes, Lootens, Giesecke, P. Edelmann, Kermes Philharmonic, Kluttig. No libretto. Deutsche Schallplatten 1052 (Empire dist.) The Forced Marriage, the fourth (1905) of Engelbert Humperdinck's nine operas, is devoid of fairy-tale elements. It...

Falla: El Amor Brujo/El Retablo de Maese Pedro.(Natacha Valladares, Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Diego Dini-Ciacci, Maurizio Dini-Ciacci)
February 28, 1998... Vallasdares, Herrera, Galofri, Pons-Tena, I Cameristi, D. Dini-Ciacci, M. Dini-Ciacci. Texts & translations. Naxos 8-553499 This is the rarely heard original version of El Amor Brujo, conceived as a theater work, produced in Madrid in 1915....

Sibelius: Kullervo.(Johanna Rusanen, Esa Ruuttenen, Laulun Ystavat Male Chorus, Turku Philharmonic, Jorma Panula)
February 28, 1998... Rusanen, Ruuttunen, Laulun Ystavat Male Chorus, Turku Philharmonic, Panula. Text and translation. Naxos 8-553756 The youthful (1892) dramatic symphony Kullervo gives an inkling of what Jean Sibelius might have accomplished had he chosen to...

Bach: St. Matthew Passion; St. Luke Passion.(Wilma Lipp, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Otto Weiner, Walter Berry, Vienna Singverein, Vienna Symphony, Karl Bohm, Alsfelder Vocal Ensemble, Bremen Baroque Orchestra, Wolfgang Helbich)
February 28, 1998... Lipp, Ludwig, Wunderlich, Wiener, Berry, Vienna Singverein & Symphony, Bohm (1962). German text only. Myto 973162 (2) Spagele, Iven; Muller, Von Berne, Schrekenberger; Alsfelder Vocal Ensemble, Bremen Baroque Orchestra, Helbich (1996). Text &...

Zemlinsky: Der Konig Kandaules.(Nina Warren, James O'Neal, Monte Pederson, Hamburg Philharmonic, Gerd Albrecht)
February 28, 1998... Warren, O'Neal, Pederson, Hamburg Philharmonic, Albrecht. Libretto & translation. Capriccio 60071 (2) King Candaules was Alexander Zemlinsky's last opera, extant (partly orchestrated, largely in short score) and carried with him in 1938...

Zemlinsky: Eine Florentinische Tragodie; A. Mahler: Six Songs.(Iris Vermillion, Albert Dohman, Heinz Kruse, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly)
February 28, 1998... Vermillion, Dohmen, Kruse; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Chailly. Tarts & translations. London 455112 Though Alma Mahler wrote just fourteen songs (her husband, Gustav, decided there was room for only one musician in the family), most...

A. Mahler: Complete Songs; Zemlinsky: Songs, op. 7.(Ruth Ziesak, Iris Vermillion)
February 28, 1998... Ziesak, Vermillion, Elsner, Garben (piano). CPO 999455 Though Alma Mahler wrote just fourteen songs (her husband, Gustav, decided there was room for only one musician in the family), most of them capture the atmosphere of the poems chosen,...

Encore: Scenes, Arias, Songs.(Inessa Galante)
February 28, 1998... by Donizetti, Offenbach, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rossini, J. Strauss, Toselli, Verdi, Weber Latvian National Opera & National Symphony, various conductors. Abbreviated English texts. Campion 1344 Aptly entitled Encore, this...

My Garden.(Felicity Lott, Graham Johnson)
February 28, 1998... songs. G. Johnson (piano). Text & translations. Hyperion 66937 The formidable partnership of soprano Felicity Lott and pianist Graham Johnson, begun in their student days at the Royal Academy of Music, continues with this superb mixed...

Schubert: 22 Goethe Songs.(Matthias Goerne)
February 28, 1998... A. Hafliger (piano). Texts & translations. London 45291 Reports of the death of the song recital appear to be greatly exaggerated: in the past five years, we've had more good fieder discs than in the previous fifteen. Among several relative...

Mussorgsky: Songs, Vol. 4.(Sergei Leiferkus)
February 28, 1998... Vol. 4. Skigin (piano). Texts & translations. Conifer 75605-512742 With this finely engineered disc, baritone Sergei Leiferkus brings to a close his four-volume account of all the Mussorgsky songs. This time he offers only sixteen songs....

Loewe: Historic Song Recordings.
February 28, 1998... Kernic, Lashanska, Onegin; Rost, Husch, Willy, Raatz-Brockmann, Van Ewyk, Henschel, Scheidl, Bronsgeest, Schlusnus, Bockelmann, Helgers, Mayr, Bender, Strienz, Jakob. No texts. Pearl 9251 This generous compendium of eighteen songs by Carl...

Arias and Songs.(Olimpia Boronat)
February 28, 1998... Marston 51001 Boronat (1867-1934) was an Italian soprano whose career was centered in Russia. Her records, made in 1904 and 1908, have always been prized for individuality and expressiveness. In accordance with her nineteenth-century training,...

Arias.(Lotte Schone)
February 28, 1998... (1924-31). Preiser LV-89224 (2) Schone and Alpar were among many artists whose careers were destroyed by the Nazis. They escaped with their lives, but at serious cost to their vocal and emotional health. Schene ended her days in Paris in...

Arias, Songs.(Gitta Alpar)
February 28, 1998... (1928-29). Preiser LV-89128 Schone and Alpar were among many artists whose careers were destroyed by the Nazis. They escaped with their lives, but at serious cost to their vocal and emotional health. Schene ended her days in Paris in 1977,...

Arias.(Maria Nemeth)
February 28, 1998... Preiser LV-89109,- Pearl GEMM-9197 Schone and Alpar were among many artists whose careers were destroyed by the Nazis. They escaped with their lives, but at serious cost to their vocal and emotional health. Schene ended her days in Paris in...

Arias.(Inge Borkh)
February 28, 1998... Preiser LV-90302 When a singer you once heard live appears on the historical Preiser label, you know you're getting old. Inge Borkh was my first Elektra, and I'll never forget the way she dug for that ax. Preiser here draws upon stereo...

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov.(Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 28, 1998... Several characterizations in its new Capriccio followed the met's current trend (also evident in Cenerentola) toward streamlining a comedy of manners into farce. NEW YORK Since its arrival at the Met in March 1913, Boris Godunov has...

Strauss, R.: Capriccio.(Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 28, 1998... Several characterizations in its new Capriccio followed the met's current trend (also evident in Cenerentola) toward streamlining a comedy of manners into farce. NEW YORK Since its arrival at the Met in March 1913, Boris Godunov has...

Mozart: Don Giovanni.(Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 28, 1998... Don Giovanni is represented at the Met by Franco Zeffirelli's jumbo production; on November 21, the company's 450th performance of the work was capably conducted by Daniel Beckwith. It has an archival look, with the stage framed in classical...

Verdi: Don Carlo.(Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 28, 1998... Don Giovanni is represented at the Met by Franco Zeffirelli's jumbo production; on November 21, the company's 450th performance of the work was capably conducted by Daniel Beckwith. It has an archival look, with the stage framed in classical...

Rossini: Il Barbieri di Siviglia.(Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 28, 1998... Don Giovanni is represented at the Met by Franco Zeffirelli's jumbo production; on November 21, the company's 450th performance of the work was capably conducted by Daniel Beckwith. It has an archival look, with the stage framed in classical...

Tan: Marco Polo.(New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, New York)
February 28, 1998... Don Giovanni is represented at the Met by Franco Zeffirelli's jumbo production; on November 21, the company's 450th performance of the work was capably conducted by Daniel Beckwith. It has an archival look, with the stage framed in classical...

Mozart: Idomeneo.(Centennial Hall, Haverford School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
February 28, 1998... Idomeneo demands both polished singing and eloquent staging. Curtis Opera Theatre me half those demands in a vividly sung but blankly staged production at the Haverford School's Centennial Hall (Dec. 11). Conductor David Milnes found the driving...

Wagner: Der Fliegende Hollander.(Cleveland, Ohio)
February 28, 1998... Cleveland Opera seemed as comfortable in the dark narrative of Der Fliegende Hollander, only its second Wagner outing (Dec. 5), as it had in the profound lightness of Die Meistersinger in 1995. Hollander benefited mightily from Constantinos...

Giordano: Andrea Chenier.(Bass Concert Hall, Austin, Texas)
February 28, 1998... AUSTIN Austin Lyric Opera's premiere of Andrea Chenier moved jauntily along at Bass Concert Hall on November 21. Burly of voice and build, Donnie Ray Albert belted out Gerard's two arias to powerful effect his unsubtle acting appropriate...

Lehar: Die Lustige Witwe.(Palais Garnier, Paris, France)
February 28, 1998... PARIS Die Lustige Witwe is surefire box office, even when sung in German in France, as it was at the Opera National de Paris (Palais Garnier, Dec. 11). In the title role, Karita Mattila subjugated her colleagues and the audience by sheer...

Wagner: Rienzi.(Vienna State Opera, Vienna, Austria)
February 28, 1998... VIENNA On December 13, David Pountney (director), Robert Israel (sets), Marie-Jeanne Lecca (costumes) and Roberto Zanella (choreography) unveiled a new Rienzi, long unheard at the State Opera. Grand opera implies spectacle, and Pountney...

Respighi: La Fiamma.(Teatro dell'Opera, Rome, Italy)
February 28, 1998... ROME While Ottorino Respighi's penultimate opera, La Fiamma, about suspected witchcraft and vaguely incestuous adultery in seventh-century Byzantine Ravenna, may seem hard to take at first glance, the season-opening production at the...

Wagner: Lohengrin.(New National Theater, Tokyo, Japan)
February 28, 1998... TOKYO At last, Tokyo has its own dedicated opera stage, situated in the handsome New National Theatre complex. The auditorium, in warm, mid-brown wood, with green upholstery, seats just over 1,800; steep raking provides excellent...

The American Opera Singer.
February 28, 1998... by Peter G. Davis Doubleday, 640 pp. $40 At Covent Garden's 1995 Verdi Festival, six of the seven operas performed had American heroines. Not long ago, many German companies relied on a core of American principals: Stuttgart's 1959...