Alcina’s Hotel California at Salzburg's Whitsun festival

By Laura Servidei, 11 June 2019

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“Bartoli was a mesmerizing Alcina... her supple, velvety mezzo rose to soprano heights with no effort”

Reviewed at Haus für Mozart, Salzburg on 9 June 2019

Handel, Alcina

Gianluca Capuano, Conductor

Damiano Michieletto, Director

Paolo Fantin, Set Designer

Agostino Cavalca, Costume Designer

Alessandro Carletti, Lighting Designer

Bachchor Salzburg

rocafilm, Video

Christian Arseni, Dramaturgy

Cecilia Bartoli, Alcina

Philippe Jaroussky, Ruggiero

Sandrine Piau, Morgana

Kristina Hammarström, Bradamante

Christoph Strehl, Oronte

Alastair Miles, Melisso

Sheen Park, Oberto

Alois Glaßner, Choirmaster / chorus director

Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco

Wagner’s Lohengrin finally returns – swanless – to Rome

Pia Maltri, 27th November

Damiano Michieletto is entrusted with the first staging of Lohengrin in Rome for 50 years, but his distracting staging is redeemed by the musical side of things.

***11

A long, strange trip: Opera Philadelphia’s Il viaggio a Reims

Cameron Kelsall, 19th September

The intrepid company brings Damiano Michieletto’s well-traveled production of a Rossini rarity to the US for the first time.

***11

Glyndebourne revives Michieletto’s Kátya Kabanová

Mark Valencia, 3rd August

Damiano Michieletto’s production of Janáček’s opera breaks a key tenet of high-concept opera: where it should reveal, it obfuscates.

***11

World premiere success for Filidei’s Il nome della rosa at La Scala

Laura Servidei, 27th April

A great cast and an enjoyable score seal the success of a new opera based on Umberto Eco's classic historical murder mystery, The Name of the Rose.

****1

Mummy issues: Michieletto’s Carmen returns to The Royal Opera

Dominic Lowe, 9th April

Aigul Akhmetshina is on the verge of becoming the definitive Carmen; in this first revival of Michieletto's 2024 production at Covent Garden, she delivers the standout performance.

***11

Fish, frocks and farce: a Prokofiev romp in Vienna

Chanda VanderHart, 28th March

Damiano Michieletto directs a slick and frequently hilarious staging of Prokofiev's comic opera Betrothal in a Monastery.

***11

More reviews...

Laura Servidei

Mathematician, science nerd, translator of popular science books, obsessed opera fan since the teen years. Day job: business analyst in a software house developing systems for the financial industry. Amateur choral singer. Main musical interests: baroque music and Italian opera. Originally from Italy, currently based in Sweden. I make a mean eggplant parmesan.

Alcina’s Hotel California: Bartoli mesmerizes in Michieletto’s new Salzburg production