Monday, November 12, 2007
PSA
by Tom Bozzo
Some have criticized the production as being "hampered" by the enormous swings of tone associated in large part with its anachronistic Romans-in-Wellies design, but Suzanne and I agreed that the production's notorious "Bollywood" elements set in the Egyptian palace did a good job of following enormous swings of tone in the score. I will grant that the appearance of a telegraph in the background of the first scene was distracting — the clackety-clacking of the dispatches to, er, Londinium was out of sync with the music and interfered with David Daniels's warm-up. Otherwise, it was a highlight of our eight years of Lyric Opera-going.
Readers in the Chicagoland area should run (I mean it, RUN!) to the Lyric Opera's revival of the Glyndeborne Festival's Giulio Cesare, playing through December 1. It's the fastest-moving 4-1/2 hours of Baroque opera you could see.
Some have criticized the production as being "hampered" by the enormous swings of tone associated in large part with its anachronistic Romans-in-Wellies design, but Suzanne and I agreed that the production's notorious "Bollywood" elements set in the Egyptian palace did a good job of following enormous swings of tone in the score. I will grant that the appearance of a telegraph in the background of the first scene was distracting — the clackety-clacking of the dispatches to, er, Londinium was out of sync with the music and interfered with David Daniels's warm-up. Otherwise, it was a highlight of our eight years of Lyric Opera-going.
Labels: opera
