Opera Warhorses

William and I were both present at the October 14th matinee of the San Francisco Opera production of Philip Glass’ “Appomattox”, recounting the end of the American Civil War.  It was presented in the War Memorial Opera House, itself built to commemorate the end of World War I - the War to end all Wars.
This [...]

[Read more →]

Those of us who spend most of our time in the Northern hemisphere may know very little about the work of operatic stage director Moffatt Oxenbould, most of it associated with the Opera Australia in Sydney. His most renowned production is of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, which premiered at Opera Australia in 1997, and has been [...]

[Read more →]

In mid-summer, acceding to requests that I get my reviews of San Francisco Opera performances out earlier in the performance cycle, and simultaneously to requests that I continue the longer analyses of each performance, I suggested that I would from time to time publish “snapshots” of my first reactions to each of the 2007 performances [...]

[Read more →]