When the Washington National Opera announced its first performances ever of Ambroise Thomas’ “Hamlet”, it seemed on paper an extraordinarily star-studded endeavor, with Carlos Alvarez as Hamlet, Diana Damrau as Ophelie and Placido Domingo conducting. Then the production came to seem star-crossed, with Alvarez withdrawing, a pregnant Damrau bowing out, and Domingo cutting back performances [...]
Entries Tagged as '2005-2010: William's Commentaries'
Michael Chioldi, Micaela Oeste Enrich Washington National Opera’s Theatrically Absorbing “Hamlet” – May 22, 2010
May 24th, 2010
Tags: 2005-2010: William's Commentaries
Opera in Live Performance: Thoughts and Assessments at the End of 2009, Part Two
March 5th, 2010
This post continues the essay I began in the feature Opera in Live Performance: Thoughts and Assessments at the End of 2009, Part One. I don’t know if I would characterize the Part One as necessarily pessimistic, even though I argued that a considerable amount of the revenues that operatic performance received from philanthropy may be [...]
Tags: 2005-2010: William's Commentaries
Opera in Live Performance: Thoughts and Assessments at the End of 2009, Part One
January 14th, 2010
For the past four years, I have published my thoughts on the performance of grand opera, usually as reviews of live performances that I have attended, mostly in the American West (defined here as a line from mid-Pennsylvania to the Pacific Ocean), but I also include reviews from such non-American West outposts as France and [...]