Cast

Sir John Falstaff: Todd Thomas

Ford: Lee Poulis

Alice Ford: Melody Moore

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Most of the opera I watch nowadays on DVD or video tends to be complete performances. But when I first discovered opera, I lapped up any opera-related video I could get my hands on: complete performances, concerts, compilations, and more. Not least intriguing were cartoons inspired by opera, and I don’t just mean the old standbys like What’s Opera, Doc? and Rabbit of Seville. A video that I watched again and again in my early days of opera fandom was Opera Imaginaire, a 1994 compilation of cartoons by various European animators. Read the rest of this entry »

This is just for the sake of posting something. I promise I’ll have another music review written in a few days – and a review of Opera Santa Barbara’s Falstaff in less than two weeks!

1. I don’t quite get the ending of Falstaff. The “double wedding” isn’t a wedding at all – there’s no clergyman, no vows are exchanged, we don’t even get the old opera buffa standby of Read the rest of this entry »

As much as I love the current Met Opera House, I sometimes wish I could have visited the old one. So much history was attached to it! So many glorious and notorious things happened in it! So naturally I was intrigued when I discovered the 1969 book Requiem for a Yellow Brick Brewery: A History of the Metropolitan Opera by John Briggs – a comprehensive Read the rest of this entry »

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

1983, Philips/Decca

(Thomas Allen, Agnes Baltsa, Francisco Araiza, Domenico Trimarchi, Robert Lloyd, Sally Burgess; Ambrosian Opera Chorus; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, cond. Neville Marriner)

This rendition of Rossini’s best-loved opera has always been a particular favorite of mine. Sir Neville Marriner conducts a performance full to the brim with elegance and charm. Yes, his reading is moderately paced and restrained compared to the fizzing energy of others (more English than Italian, I suppose), but it still contains

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If there’s one thing I love besides opera, it’s good food. I love it a little too much for my own good, though Weight Watchers has been helping me manage that love. Not only do I have a formidable collection of cookbooks, I’m the only person I know who reads cookbooks just for fun. One of my favorites in my collection Read the rest of this entry »

Marius

As with Valjean and Fantine, it’s easy to assume that the screen portrayal of Marius can’t possibly be equaled onstage. Eddie Redmayne gives a consummate performance that combines romance and tenderness with strength, passion and dignity, not to mention a rich, handsome voice, and has probably made countless Les Mis fans fall in love with a character they once viewed as  Read the rest of this entry »