Performer: Ann Murray

Eine Produktion von Le nozze di Figaro, in der sowohl Marcellina als auch Barbarina großartige Leistungen bieten, zeigt ein Ensemble vom Feinsten.

The Aurora Orchestra defies tradition and turns Britten’s ghostly Turn of the Screw into a kind of a dramatic ‘installation’

Leah Hausman's revival of David McVicar's production allows the comedy to stem from the situations set up by Mozart and da Ponte... aided by Erwin Schrott's witty Figaro.

Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas deserves credit for this excellent semi-staged version of Britten's Peter Grimes performed with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall.

In his program note, conductor-director Iván Fischer describes his Mostly Mozart Festival production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro as a staged concert. His agenda sounds serious: “This is my attempt to bring theater and music closer to each other, to create a new natural harmony.” He asks for a new era in opera production, seeking “organic unity” between music and theater.

Professional performances of English operas are rare – they always have been – and it is presumably the 60th anniversary of The Pilgrim’s Progress specifically that has prompted this 2012 revival. It seems that without a significant anniversary to justify blowing the dust off a score, English operas tend to lie unheeded – the exception of course is Benjamin Britten.