Houston marriage of figaro

It levels us into a sort of gray thing, and loses the flavor of the individual houses. With Fisher's deal, there's no casting imposed, just the physical production. I don't believe in the few Corbett things I've seen, and I surely don't believe in the singers involved. The Corbett thing is bad, bad. The Fisher one has to be handled with great care. But is it still the right thing to do? I mean, should I do Mr.

Gockley is plagued by none of Kelly's doubts. While Gockley and Kelly go merrily along their indivual ways, they are in agreement that, like it or not, Big Brother Metropolitan is a prime force in opera in this country. They don't like it.

Many of our regional companies sprang up from guilds which used to present the Met. Many of our subscribers got started on opera through the broadcasts. The same is true of our leadership —chairmen of boards, presidents. The Met does it that way. I've heard her on the broadcasts and she should be doing our Carmen. Kelly agrees, and is more vehement because Dallas is Met tour city. This is an annoyance to me.

It's not my right to direct how people should spend money, but the tour is builtin tacky. You can't have production values on the basis on which the Met tours. I will say this to anybody, including Schuyler Chapin, whom I like very much. The tour serves to perpetuate the myth of the Met being a national opera company. This is especially true with the performance of Luca Pisaroni as the Count.

His Count was no burned out aristocrat, looking for a last fling, but was played with a quality of menace, of one seeking to hold onto powers which he could see slipping away. This must be a consistent undercurrent, even during those scenes when the Count is a part of the broader comedy, as his plans collapse, and his goal seems to be eluding his grasp, as in the end of the Second Act.

Pisaroni performed brilliantly, energetically, bringing out the shift between moods of elation and frustration, as in the duettino with Susanna which opens the Third Act. Ellie Dehn's Countess was a moving portrayal, combining longing for a lost love with the bitterness of betrayal, with a deep and powerful richness to her voice.

It should be noted that, despite the tendency for an audience to be won over to her side out of sympathy for her, especially given the beautiful arias Mozart gave her, that she is still a Countess: among her laments are that she has been forced, by the Count, to have to conspire with the servants! Adriana Kucerova portrayed Susanna with an endearing lively, spunky quality which, at times, elevated her character above the rest.

Her graceful movement accentuated a radiant voice, which lifted her from the role of a servant, to the equal of the Countess, no matter how much this may have pained the Countess. More could be said of the wonderful performances of the other singers, and the chorus, but such would make this review longer than the opera. It is an HGO tradition, and it was done perfectly well by Director Harry Silverstein, and I hope it continues to be used far into the future.

Venetian Ca-Ca. Venetian Ca-Ca Mozart's Don Giovanni Articles on the Science of Music. Well, almost everyone. After the cast ran out and graciously bowed to the outdoor audience, the thousand or so people headed toward their cars. I spotted the child in the red and black polka-dotted skirt who'd danced to the overture. She was stretched out on a blanket, fast asleep. Since we started the Houston Press , it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Houston, and we'd like to keep it that way.

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At on Friday evening, much of the audience for The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart's most popular opera, was arriving outside Wortham Center. They toted their fold-up aluminum lawn chairs, their Igloo coolers, their Batman blankets. They wore Bermudas and gimme caps, cutoffs and Nikes. Some weren't even a year old yet, but for once at the opera, no one scowled at the children. Lee Williams. Don't Miss Out. It's Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, the most-produced opera at companies across North America, Opera America reports in its survey of the season.

The reasons it remains both a landmark work and a touchstone for classical artists are numerous and complex. Start with the composer, so miraculously gifted and astonishingly prolific that his talent still is a source of awe; witness the depiction in Amadeus , Peter Shaffer 's prize-winning play now at the Alley Theatre.

In a sort of mini-Mozart Festival, HGO is producing the opera whose creation and premiere are part of the fictionalized narrative of Amadeus. The Marriage of Figaro was the first of Mozart's three operas written with Lorenzo Da Ponte , one of the greatest opera librettists, whose dramaturgical gifts matched Mozart's musical ones.

While their subsequent Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte are likewise masterworks, many consider The Marriage of Figaro Mozart's most perfect opera in its structure and its balance of bliss and pain, romance and treachery, humorous mischief and deeply felt emotion. The opera had a head start, derived from its source, Pierre Beaumarchais' deftly crafted play of the same title, a sequel to his earlier success The Barber of Seville.