Opera Warhorses

By tradition and for practical reasons, persons who review opera performances usually attend the first performance in a season of a given opera, although persons reviewing performances at several companies often must attend a second or later performance at one company to be able to accommodate to the schedule of another. Almost every company is [...]

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For Lyric Opera’s 1997-98 season Nicolas Joel created a production of Bizet’s “Les Pecheurs de Perles” in which Paul Groves and Gino Quilico played the male lead roles, with sets created by Hubert Monloup. Eleven seasons later, the Joel production was revived, with extensive revisions. Scott Marr of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center created new sets [...]

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For opening night of the Pittsburgh Opera’s 2008-09 season, Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila” was performed in a “refurbished” production that saw the role debuts of tenor Frank Porretta as Samson and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Dalila. It was also the occasion for the stage debut of baritone Kim Josephson (who had sung the role in [...]

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