Articles tagged with: Rosa Feola
‘Rigoletto’ at the Lyric Opera: Not for the eye, but it’s a triple treat vocally, and that’s no jest
Review: Thanks to the vocally resplendent and emotionally engaged performances by baritone Quinn Kelsey as the hateful and paranoid court jester Rigoletto, soprano Rosa Feola as his sheltered and naïve daughter Gilda and tenor Matthew Polenzani as the sexually predatory Duke of Mantua, the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s take on Verdi’s “Rigoletto” pays significant rewards as psychological drama. But this bleak, objectified production created 20 years ago for the San Francisco Opera with sets by Michael Yeargan – and directed here by E. Loren Meeker – all but nullifies the work as theater. ★★★
In concert, Muti and a well-rounded Falstaff bathe Verdi’s bittersweet opera in telling light
Review: Amid all its other virtues, and those are manifold, there is a refreshing, illuminating transparency and uncluttered purity in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert presentation of Verdi’s opera “Falstaff.” Its co-stars are baritone Ambroglio Maestri in the title role, at the head of a splendid cast, and CSO music director Riccardo Muti on the podium.
Balm for a winter weekend, Mozart’s Requiem casts warming glow in hands of Muti and CSO
Review: It was a sad time for Chicago’s musical community, which had lost two respected musicians within days of each other. By astonishing coincidence the scheduled program, dedicated to their memory, included the Requiem by Mozart, whose own life slipped away from him as he wrote it. A bit of the Lacrymosa is the last passage in Mozart’s own hand.
Muti, CSO and singers echo private Schubert with belated first glimpse of Mass in A-flat
Review: It is hard to know which to admire more about Schubert’s Mass No. 5 in A-flat, its consummate lyricism and elegance of construction or its honest spirituality, so open-hearted and direct. In both form and content, this luminous Mass shone in a performance Thursday night by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Riccardo Muti at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★
Opening Carnegie Hall season, Muti and CSO match the celebrity sparkle of a packed house
Report from NYC: “Carmina Burana”
