Opera Warhorses

In 2009, I personally reviewed 48 performances of operas at 11 different opera companies in the United States and Germany. Time and logistics make it impossible to see every production at every company I visit each year. However, I have managed to attend at least one performance of every main season production mounted by the [...]

[Read more →]

In 1950, the American debut of 35 year old operatic tenor Mario del Monaco  took place at the San Francisco Opera. His American debut role was Rhadames in Verdi’s “Aida”. Making her American debut with del Monaco was the soprano in the title role, 28 year old Renata Tebaldi. She had first sung the role [...]

[Read more →]

The title of Gioacchino Rossini’s most famous work, identifying the occupation of a chief character, Figaro, derives from the subversive French play by Beaumarchais that helped accelerate the national campaign against aristocratic privilege that culminated in the French Revolution. Not quite three decades later, the Revolution, including its Napoleonic aftermath, was over. Rossini prepared a [...]

[Read more →]