Beautiful singing, realistic staging

By Edward Sava-Segal, 05 January 2018

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“a gift for lavish visuals but also a keen eye for illuminating details”

Reviewed at Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House, New York City on 3 January 2018

Puccini, Tosca

Metropolitan Opera

Emmanuel Villaume, Conductor

Sir David McVicar, Director

John Macfarlane, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Sonya Yoncheva, Floria Tosca

Vittorio Grigolo, Mario Cavaradossi

Željko Lučić, Baron Scarpia

Patrick Carfizzi, Sacristan

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Tristan und Isolde at the Met: staging gets in the way of the music

No’a L. bat Miri, 9th March

Michael Spyres shines in his debut as Tristan alongside powerhouse soprano Lise Davidsen as Isolde in Yuval Sharon's new, beguiling production at the Metropolitan Opera.

***11

Ailyn Pérez is the perfect Butterfly in the Met’s revival

Robert Levine, 13th January

Good Butterflys are not that difficult to come by but great ones are very very rare. Ailyn Pérez fits the bill in this revival of Anthony Minghella’s classic staging.

*****

Vocal thrills in Met’s traditional staging of Bellini’s I puritani

Susan Stempleski, 31st December

Marco Armiliato conducts a finely balanced rendition of Bellini's final masterpiece with a stellar cast headed by Lisette Oropesa and Lawrence Brownlee.

*****

Porgy and Bess returns stronger than ever at the Met

Robert Levine, 7th December

Back to Catfish Row for another revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and James Robinson’s show continue to wow our writer.

*****

Singers bring passion and excitement to Met’s Andrea Chénier revival

Susan Stempleski, 24th November

The Metropolitan Opera kicks off this season’s revival of Umberto Giordano’s tempestuous melodrama with standout performances from a resplendent cast.

****1

Willis-Sørensen headlines a successful Arabella revival at the Met

Ako Imamura, 10th November

The Metropolitan Opera revives Otto Schenk’s venerable staging of Strauss’s intimate melodrama.

****1

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Edward Sava-Segal

Edward has been living in New York for the last 25 years, one of the reasons being the extraordinarily rich cultural life in this city. He has studied piano and classical music in his early years. He switched later on to computer science and data architecture but he kept an unwavering interest in following the classical music phenomenon here in New York and in his travels. Edward occasionally reviews fine arts events for the most prestigious literary magazine in Romania, his home country.

Beautiful singing, realistic staging for the Met’s new Tosca