Massimo Cavalletti is a natural talent; the 38 year-old baritone just sang his 100th Met performance of Puccini’s La bohème, the opera he made his Met debut in only six years ago. It’s hard to believe that Cavalletti’s first experience with opera occurred when he 20 years old. Within a Read more…
Prior to the Das Rheingold preview night at Minnesota Opera on Thursday, November 10, 2016, I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Minnesota Opera Resident Artist Jessica Hall, one of the two opera pianists for Minnesota Opera’s current production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the prologue in his epic Read more…
I’ve heard a lot of naysayers talk about Olga Peretyatko’s diction and intonation, but just listen to her in this recording of Bellini’s I puritani. What a gorgeous sound in such an exquisite work, an excellent example of bel canto. I puritani premiered in Paris in 1835, the year of Read more…
At 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 10, 2016, I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing history in the making – I attended the preview night of the first ever Minnesota Opera production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the prologue in Wagner’s epic four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of Read more…
Amanda Majeski has one of those commanding yet intimate soprano voices that makes you forget everything else going on around you. When you first hear her, you know immediately that she is the real thing. Playing Donna Elvira at the Met this year in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Majeski sat down Read more…
Leah Crocetto, San Francisco Opera’s latest Aida, is no longer an up and coming star – she has made it! Crocetto is anything but a stereotypical diva; she is kind, down-to-earth, entertaining, and personable, one of those people everyone loves to be around. A musician through and through, Leah Crocetto Read more…
Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto has a powerful, unforgettable sound. I know him primarily through Mozart – as Figaro in a famous Met recording of Le Nozze di Figaro and as Don Alfonso in another James Levine led production of Così fan tutte (this one was with the Vienna Philharmonic). Although Read more…
For me, opera begins with Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) – the first of three Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Lorenzo Da Ponte collaborations (the other two were Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte). Of course there were many operatic masterpieces before this 1786 work, even a couple by Mozart himself (Idomeneo and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, for instance), but there’s something special about Le Nozze, a work that has never been out of the standard repertory. Premiering three years before the French Revolution, Le Nozze is a product of the Enlightenment, a time when reason ruled and liberty, fraternity, and equality were ideals worth fighting for.
Opera Sense recommended recordings of Le Nozze di Figaro: