The biting wit of Vincenzo Grimani's libretto is well served by some knockout arias and excellent performances from a strong cast and the matchless Il pomo d'oro.
The Met's revival of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1984 production of La clemenza di Tito is given a new breath of life with superb conducting and an excellent ensemble of singers.
The Rotterdam Philharmonic marked their centenary with two concerts starring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. A bittersweet weekend, during which they also took leave of their beloved principal conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Jake Heggie's spectacular vocal writing combine with Terence McNally's perfectly paced libretto to provide intense music drama which forces you to confront darkness.
Nothing is better than when Berlioz ramps up the decibels. With a huge orchestra and choir and a deluxe starry cast assembled in Strasbourg, this was a special performance.
Joyce DiDonato made her Chicago Symphony debut in a rarely heard song cycle of Giuseppe Martucci, while more familiar territory was to be found in Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
To open the new season, the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot were joined by star mezzo Joyce DiDonato, whose performance sent listeners over the top and over the rainbow.
Vittorio Grigolo and Joyce DiDonato live up to their starry reputations in the Royal Opera's latest revival of Massenet's tale of unrequited love and suicide.
Despite starry bel canto experts such as Joyce DiDonato, Lawrence Brownlee and maestro Michele Mariotti, a 2013 Paul Curran staging of Rossini’s La donna del lago reads vacuous on The Metropolitan Opera stage.
Though Joyce DiDonato is an incredibly versatile artist, her performance at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening reaffirmed that she is, above all, one of the leading interpreters of Rossini today.
The Met’s playful production of Rossini’s great, loveable and busy La Cenerentola is back and in excellent hands. Joyce DiDonato's Cinderella, singing the role at the Met for the first time is perfect.
It has been five years since mezzo Joyce DiDonato last sang in Amsterdam. In those five years, she won an Emmy Award, headed the cast of countless productions at the Met and Covent Garden, and has been recognized as one of the greatest opera singers of our time by the press and aficionados alike.
It’s time to stop talking about James Levine’s comeback. After a scintillating return to Carnegie Hall in May and a fleet, immaculate Così fan tutte at the Metropolitan Opera in September, Levine has proven what he never really had to: his powers have not waned in his absence from the podium. Given sensible scheduling and interesting repertoire, we can focus once again on his music-making.
The Last Night of the Proms provided a welcome tying-up of the various strands that have permeated this year’s season: British light music, the 60th anniversary of the Coronation, a host of premières and new BBC commissions, and the significant anniversaries of a number of composers (including the big-hitters of the season, Wagner and Britten).
It was with great curiosity that I set off for the Barbican on Saturday night. I’ve never been to see an opera in the cinema before – I don’t think I’ve even sat through a pre-recorded film of an opera for many years, as I am a great fan of the “real thing”: opera performed live on stage.
When on Sunday afternoon Joyce DiDonato came onstage at Carnegie Hall, the savvy New York audience gave her a truly royal reception by welcoming her with a long ovation. Such a reaction from the audience was hardly surprising.
It was a touching moment when an overwhelmed Joyce DiDonato re-entered the stage after her fourth encore and covered her face with her hands for a few moments, not sure what to do in response to the unceasing applause.
In the last few decades, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi has flirted with standard repertory status, but it has not sufficiently won the hearts of opera-goers to warrant more than the occasional production. Though blessed with some of the composer’s finest melodies, the opera has problems for modern audiences.
Venexia, Venise, Venedig: city of singing gondoliers, loved-up couples and pigeons. That was the picture painted last night at the sold-out recital by Joyce DiDonato and her accompanist David Zobel at the Wigmore Hall.
Shortly after Rossini's success with The Barber of Seville came La Cenerentola, a reworking of the Cinderella fairy tale, but with a little less magic, and a lot more worldly comedy. It was an instant success and further established the 25-year-old Rossini as one of the greatest Italian opera composers of his day.
I once heard a lecture by Gérard Mortier, then head of the Paris Opera, contrasting the twin operatic traditions starting from Monteverdi's serious and affecting dramma per musica and the lavish court entertainments of Lully. A couple of centuries on, there's no need to ask the side of the fence on which Massenet's Cendrillon falls.
The Strauss opera Ariadne auf Naxos was inspired by the Moliere play The Middle-Class Gentleman. The richest man in Vienna has arranged for two entertainments--one a serious opera composed by a young man just for the occasion, and the other an Italian comedy group. He decides at the last minute to combine the two into one entertainment. If he were a proper gentleman, he would know better.
Tumblers and fire jugglers in rainbow colors. Singing nymphs soaring for stories into the air. Arias deeply dramatic and broadly comic. The Metropolitan Opera’s interpretation of Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss is a magical mashup of modern and classic, seria and buffa, technique and technology that pleases but falls short of terrific for this reviewer.
When Franz Liszt conducted Le Comte Ory in Weimar, he said it “bubbled like champagne,” according to the Metropolitan Opera’s program note. It also noted that Liszt arranged for the audience to be served champagne in Act II.
On February 15th, Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC proudly hosted a recital of the internationally acclaimed mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato and famous pianist David Zobel. Part of this season’s Star Series, the recital presented by Washington Performing Arts Society, was given in honor of Vocal Arts 20th Anniversary.
Au Festival de Saint-Denis, Antonio Pappano dirige généreusement un bel Orchestre de l’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Joyce DiDonato se distingue dans Giovanna d’Arco.
Convertida en una especie Khaleeside vodevil, DiDonato ofreció una magnífica actuación en un papel que estrena con esta gira europea, acompañada de un cartel de suplentes que estuvo, cuando menos, a su nivel.
L’Orchestre National de France clôt sa saison le soir du 14 juillet lors du Concert de Paris, au pied de la tour Eiffel, en compagnie de quelques-unes des stars lyriques les plus en vue du moment.
