Tag Archives: Hasse

Gypsy, La Donna del Lago, and Viva la Diva, Buxton Festival, July 2022

Posted on 11 July 2022

The Buxton Festival got off to a cracking start with the musical Gypsy to lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The following nights saw operas by Rossini and Donizetti. Rossini’s La Donna del Lago was beautifully sung, but in a very odd staging. The Donizetti was an operatic farce turned into third-rate Monty Python. See my reviews …

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Demetrio, Opera Settecento, Cadogan Hall, September 2016

Posted on 22 September 2016

The libretto to Hasse’s Demetrio, by the famous Metastasio who was born and died a year before the composer, is based on real events in the mid-second century BC. In 150 BC Demetrius Soter of the Greek Seleucid dynasty, which controlled most of the Middle East north of Arabia, was defeated in battle by Alexander …

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