Wednesday, December 4

Tag: Don Carlos

Don Carlos – Operaen, Det KGL Teater
REVIEWS

Don Carlos – Operaen, Det KGL Teater

There are different versions of Verdi’s masterpiece about love and duty with director Davide Livermore’s new production drawing on the 1884 Milan version, performed in Italian, which jettisons the original’s scene-setting first act, and relies upon strong performances from the cast to move the production along, which it gets here in droves. It's a tough story with far too real parallels to ongoing events in the Ukraine and Middle East which serves to reinforce the piece’s uncompromising assessment of the ways of human nature as we are thrust via a love triangle into a courtly world, although not 16th Century Spain here, but rather that of the Franco era, emboldened by costume designer Mariana Fracasso, and to which the principles of religious Inquisition and destructive suppression of p...
Don Carlos – The Metropolitan Opera, New York
REVIEWS

Don Carlos – The Metropolitan Opera, New York

The Met Opera’s original five-act French version of Verdi’s epic opera of doomed love among royalty is in fact an amended version of the 1867 Paris edition with some omissions as well as the addition of elements from later Italian versions, but if the intention was to serve up the best version possible then there is no doubt that this comes pretty close with the magnificence of its delivery. Photo: Ken Howard It's a tough story with far too real parallels to events unfolding in the Ukraine which serves to reinforce the piece’s uncompromising assessment of the ways of human nature as we are thrust via a love triangle into the courtly world of 16th Century Spain complete with its religious Inquisition and destructive suppression of protest in Flanders. At almost five hours, there is...