Tag Archives: Juan Diego Flórez
Recording of the Week: Matilde di Shabran
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd January 2015Written in in 1820 for Rome and then revised in 1821 for Naples, Matilde di Shabran is Rossini’s last semiseria opera. A semiseria opera combines opera buffa with melodrama. Basically, it can be both silly and serious as long as everyone ends up alive at the final curtain. If you wish to see and hear…
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La Cenerentola in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th May 2014Rossini is life. He reinvented Italian opera when he was 20. And every Italian composer who followed him is in his debt. Today’s HD telecast of Rossini’s version of Cinderella showed why. Cenerentola (Rossini calls her Angelina) has been done 38 times by the Met, all in Cesare Lievi’s 1997 production. His semi-surreal sets and Maurizio…
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Le Comte Ory in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th April 2011Rossini’s penultimate opera, Le Comte Ory, received its first staging at the Metropolitan Opera this season. This is a charming work that is Rossini just below his best – which means that it’s very good, indeed. The opera needs three virtuoso singers well versed in the bel canto style. In Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato,…
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La Sonnambula in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st March 2009Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Bellini’s gentle masterpiece which was booed after its first performance at the Met was sent all over the world today. And it wasn’t the worst thing since Jacopo Peri. It wasn’t even in the same league of awfulness as Calixto Bieito or Robert Wilson. It was just ordinary silliness. Part…
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