Mainly Opera and Ballet
This Handel opera centres on two strong women: Agrippina and Poppea, with Joyce DiDonato at the top of her game as a smoothly scheming Agrippina, and Lucy Crowe as a charmingly pretty Poppea. A very strong cast beautifully conducted from the harpsichord by Maxim Emelyanychev, but the self-indulgent production by Barrie Kosky was way over the …
If you can get past the wanton incoherence of the first scene in David McVicar’s darkly seedy production, this was a performance — dedicated to the late, much-missed Dmitri Hvorostovsky — of huge power and pathos. A philanderer and serial sex offender enjoying unlimited power molests numerous young women, inspiring shame and anger among their …
That great playwright Schiller did not let historical facts get in the way of a good story, and his Don Karlos is a gripping stage tragedy. Traducung the close and loving relationship between Philip II and his third wife Elizabeth de Valois, step-mother to Don Carlo, it was perfect for Verdi, who added elements of …
