La Sonnambula is an idillic, classical and intense melodramma with an extremely fine, lyrical musicality and tense with pure "canto", suspended between Arcadia and Romanticism. It is a combination of tender and melancholic sentiments and of tragic and moving passion, in a natural uncontaminated and...
A timeless tale told in a florid bel canto style, Rossini’s take on the Cinderella story offers an ideal propellant for a virtuosic mezzo-soprano to rocket from rags to riches. But in this retelling, the supporting characters soar just as high: Cinderella’s Prince, her stepfather, and the...
L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a comic opera (melodramma giocoso) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). Written in haste in a six-week period,[1] L'elisir...
For his first opera production, Dario Fo, the theatre director known for his brilliant wit, chose to stage Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia sung in Italian for the Netherlands Opera. First mounted in 1987, it was a huge success and a live recording of its revival in May 1992, the 200th anniversary...
