Could purist opera fans really be mean? Or they just don’t mind being direct and honest in providing feedback regarding productions that they see. The word “Eurotrash” still comes up occasionally despite the initial derogatory nature. You must have remembered the word Eurotrash when I wrote a review about stage director Willy Decker’s vision of Verdi’s…
What if I tell you that once in opera, somebody dared to shock the market and rock everyone on their seats with their revolutionary approach on opera? I am referring to Richard Strauss and 2 of his operatic masterpieces changed the opera industry forever. And I will discuss one of them here – Richard Strauss’s…
Almost everyone blogs now whether to promote their products, services or recommendations. It has also come to light that while there is no one-size-fits all blogging format to follow, some formats available online can be used to plug niche-reliant products like your latest play or musical. Selling tickets for your initial production is a surmountable…
Some Christmas letters from your relatives just make you think twice if they really meant to send you a very Merry Christmas. Perhaps the festive season produced the kind of happiness for one person and annoyance/irritation for the rest of us. Even worse, it’s our own relatives that has this tendency to do this to…
You may have read about certain productions that apart from sharing a story, they also have an audience in mind as they write the story. But of course, the moment you have written, edited and finally submitted your proposed story, once pre-production has begun, the audience would be put into consideration too. Here’s the issue…
I have kept this link for quite some time now since some marquee names are not afraid to speak up whenever they see something wrong. In this commentary that we have at the moment, I would comment on some statements that retired soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa mentioned about Britain killing talent. Dame Kiri has…
It’s been more than a week since I last made an article for the column “Nuts and Bolts”. If you haven’t read that, you can check it out here. It’s basically the part here I made bite-sized comments on opera-related news items. This time around, I would be analyzing the trends that occurred courtesy of…
Fascinated with the popularity of Natalie Dessay, I then decided to check out if she has done the role of Violetta in La Traviata. And I eventually discovered that she did at the Metropolitan Opera. I mentioned that in a previous article. Then again, the challenge usually lay in making an interesting version of one…
I like it when technology is applied on things that I enjoy watching that doesn’t make the production look too fake nor too artificial. If there was an excellent way to utilize technology that would improve the overall presentation of a musical, then I’m all for it. This is the amazement I felt the moment…
Let’s face it – until now there are skeptics questioning the veracity of the book “The Travels of Marco Polo“. It can be an issue of translation, an issue of condensing several accounts into a single book or a matter of perceived inaccuracy. Besides, the early days of sea navigation mean exploring into the unknown…