Opera Warhorses

California’s hottest late November/early December ticket for opera was the San Francisco Opera production of Bizet’s Carmen, whose nine scheduled performances were completely sold out for several weeks. Alternate casts and conductors permitted consecutive day performances on each of three weekends. This is a complete turnaround for a company that only a couple of years [...]

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The second opera of the Kirov Mariinsky Theatre’s production of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Niebelungen” brought together two mysterious forces - Gergiev and Tsypin’s furtive symbology of mankind’s collective memory about the age when gods, giants and dwarves shared the Earth and the seemingly indestructible voice of 64-year old Placido Domingo in his signature Wagnerian [...]

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