Kendall Gladen and Adam Diegel in Act IV of Carmen.(Photo by Gaston de Cardenas) By Greg StepanichThe Florida Grand Opera closed its 69th season Saturday night in Fort Lauderdale with a production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen that was sometimes brilliant, sometimes risible, but that also offered reliably good singing and enough dramatic punch to give it real … [Read more...]
Opera review: Second cast of PBO’s ‘Carmen’ features auspicious debuts
Madgalena Wór and Rafael Dávila in Carmen.(Photo by Alissa Dragun) By Rex Hearn I’ve seen Georges Bizet’s Carmen many times, but the second cast of the recent Palm Beach Opera production offered even a veteran operagoer fresh delights. Chief among them Saturday night was the Polish-born mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wór, who made a magnificent debut with this company, with her … [Read more...]
Opera feature: Ever-vital ‘Carmen’ to close PB Opera season
Georges Bizet (1838-1875).By Greg StepanichThe young Frenchman Jean-Luc Tingaud is the associate conductor at the venerable Opéra-Comique in Paris, the same theater (though not the same building) where the opera Carmen premiered in March of 1875.Three months later, Carmen’s composer, Georges Bizet, died of runaway strep throat at the tragically young age of 36. Tingaud says the … [Read more...]