Although Lorenzo Da Ponte’s reading of the character best known as Don Juan is that he is an unrepentant rake who deserves perdition with a capital P, today’s opera directors have a dilemma on their hands: How exactly are we to understand Don Giovanni? As the focus of one of Mozart’s finest operas, it’s a crucial question. I’ve seen him depicted as a Las Vegas crime lord in … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Before Night Falls’ an important work, strongly cast
The life of Cuba after the Revolution of 1959 has been the subject of endless amounts of prose and heated arguments, but it also makes a good subject for an opera. In May 2010, the Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín saw his opera on this subject, Before Night Falls, take the stage for the first time at the Fort Worth Opera in Texas. On Saturday night, he was on hand again … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 18-19
Music: Florida Grand Opera continues its remake of itself as more of a cutting-edge company today as it opens the first of five presentations of Before Night Falls, the 2010 opera by Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín, which is based on the memoirs of the dissident Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas. The opera tells the story of Arenas’s talent, his homosexuality and suffering from … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2016-17: Opera
The coming season at the three regional opera companies has no milestones like last season did, with the wrap up of Sarasota Opera’s 28-year Verdi Cycle project or Florida Grand Opera’s staging of Mieczysaw Weinberg’s The Passenger, but the season has some very interesting events nonetheless, and savvy operagoers will find much to enjoy. Palm Beach Opera: The company enters … [Read more...]