Tag Archives: Donizetti
Anna Bolena in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th October 2011Anna Netrebko showed this afternoon why Donizetti’s first successful opera is still performed. Though premiered in 1830, it took Anna Bolena until this year to reach the Met. The opera was Donizetti’s 34th. What kept him in the game after going so long without a hit is mysterious. He shows once again that the greatest determinant of…
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Opening Night at the Met Streamed
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th September 2011Actually it was more like an intermittently babbling brook. The Met’s internet stream had more stops and starts than a broken zipper. If you were listening to Anna Bolena on Sirius’s satellite signal all was well. But the Met’s “updated” feed was a disaster. How much of this imperfect streaming to blame on the Met and how much should…
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Una Furtiva Lagrima – A Baker’s Dozen
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th December 2010Donizetti’s comic opera L’Elisir D’Amore is a great masterpiece, yet great as it is it has been overshadowed by it’s wildly popular tenor aria ‘Una furtiva lagrima’. There are more recordings of it than there is time to listen to them. I picked out 13 of them performed by tenors past and present which give…
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Don Pasquale in HD Redux
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd December 2010As I was out of the country when Don Pasquale was broadcast live I had to settle for the rerun on December 1. This opera is a gem. What would any opera lover give for a composer who could turn out the wealth of great tunes that fill this work? It was one of the…
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Lucia in Miami
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th January 2010Florida Grand Opera’s Lucia Di Lammermoor had its season premiere last night (January 23, 2010) at the Ziff Ballet Opera House. Unfortunately it was not one of the company’s better efforts. Director Renaud Doucet and designer André Barbet set the action in what seemed to be the 1930’s. There were kilts mixed with dinner jackets…
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L’Elisir d’Amore in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th July 2009The Santa Opera presented its new production of Donizetti’s comic ruby last night (July 15, 2009). Stephen Lawless set the action in an Italian village just at the conclusion of World War II. Why? Who knows. But the show works despite a few contradictions induced by the change in setting. Sergent Belcore is in the…
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Daughter of the Regiment in HD – April 26, 2008
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th April 2008I know I said I’d used up my life’s allotment of performances of Donizetti’s Bonbon, but Dessay and Florez at the Met were too tempting to pass up. Laurent Pelly’s production moves the opera’s time to that of World War I. But when you set this opera is irrelevant. It succeeds or fails with its…
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