Madrid

There are countries where there is some sort of rivalry between two cities - Los Angeles and San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Rio, Milan and Rome etc. In Spain, it is Barcelona and Madrid. Before I took my flight, many Madrid partisans and Barcelona partisans have tried to convince me that I would find their [...]

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Don Juan and the reggae

Although everybody knows that Tirso de Molina´s El Burlador de Sevilla is the source of inspiration for what would become Lorenzo da Ponte´s libretto for Mozart´s Don Giovanni, the truth is that few people have seen the play outside Spain. As the British director responsible for the production at the Teatro de la Abadía, Dan [...]

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Gioconda, but not really amused

Ponchielli’s La Gioconda is an example of opera that disappeared from the seasons of opera houses all over the world only to be ressurrected in this new century. In Madrid for example, the opera has rarely been heard since the 1920’s with the notable exception of a run of performances in the 1970’s in the [...]

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See you soon, Barcelona!

I am still in Barcelona while I write this and, although it has been only three days, it seems as if I have been here all my life - this is such a warm, beautiful, elegant city!
As I wanted to stay close to the opera house, I’ve found a hotel in the district of Raval, which [...]

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Regietheater, the Spanish way

Being acquainted with Calixto Bieito’ s production of Don Giovanni from the Teatro del Liceu on video, I thought it would be interesting to sample the controversial director in his own field and got a ticket to his adaptation of chivalric novel Tirant lo blanc, written in the XVth Century by Joanot Martorell.  Although this [...]

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A Handel night in the heart of Catalonia

Lisa Saffer and David Daniels are two American singers whose Handelian reputations are long established. Tonight they have teamed with Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie to offer an all-Handel concert in the Teatro del Liceu.
A whole generation of admirers of Handel operas have first listened to many famous arias with Saffer in Nicholas McGegan’ s pioneer [...]

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Il segreto per fare il pubblico felice

My relationship with Donizetti’ s Lucrezia Borgia was love at first hearing when I first bought Jonel Perlea’ s RCA recording. I’d known Victor Hugo’ s play and thought the plot (but not the overwrought dialogues) compelling, but the truth is Felice Romani’ s inutilia truncat did a great service to the play and Donizetti’ [...]

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Eccomi alfine in Barcelona

I cannot write about my impressions yet, because I’ve barely had the time to realize I am in Spain. A lost connecting flight gave me just the hour I needed to check in, settle down in my room and go to the Liceu, where I would have a meeting with Ms. Lucrezia Borgia (more about that in [...]

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More about Karita Mattila’s Manon Lescaut

I’ve read around so many negative opinion on Karita Mattila’s Manon, especially from those who saw the cinecast, that I felt I should say something in her favour. First of all, it seems that the close-up shooting made Mattila’s acting seem ridiculous and unnatural. I must say that this was not the impression I had live at [...]

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BTW, I hate coughing too

New York was cold and snowy and I took my flight from Brasilia, where it is warm and rainy. I guess I was supposed to get an allergic reaction or some kind of flu, but it seems that I was the only healthy person in the Metropolitan Opera for a week or two. Those people cough as [...]

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