Opera Warhorses

The foul weather flags were flying along Galveston Bay, the Houston area’s Gulf of Mexico shoreline, when William Burden, the tenor scheduled to sing the title role in Houston Grand Opera’s production of Gounod’s “Faust” awoke to an inflamed throat. Throughout the day he consulted with his doctor, voice experts, and the opera’s management. It [...]

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Last year, the Wall Street Journal’s opera critic Heidi Waleson called Gounod’s “Faust” a “silly opera”, employing a phrase apparently designed to show her condescension to the task of reviewing the Met’s then new production. There was no accompanying essay explaining why Ms Waleson so characterized the venerable French opera.
I have always looked forward to [...]

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The final opera of the Kirov Opera/Mariinsky Theatre presentation of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Niebelungen” in California’s Orange County commenced in the late afternoon on the fifth day after the Friday evening “Rheingold” that began it all. Valery Gergiev, the Kirov/Mariinsky’s great wonder, again conducted.
As the Three Norns came into view, tending buoys around which [...]

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