The high musical level reached in Un Ballo in maschera that in the last days has been offered at Liceu has managed to bring success to the performances, which otherwise  in the strictly theatrical scope would have been a failure. The main merit in the triumph of this Ballo must be attributed to maestro Riccardo Frizza, who managed to get the orchestra to offer one of the best performances of the season. Frizza got from the instrumental ensemble the relatively restrained, intimate...

Lise Davidsen makes her role debut as “Tosca” at the Bergen International Festival Ever since Lise Davidsen hit upon the world of opera in 2015, when she won not one but three major competitions - Operalia, Hans Gabor Belvedere and in her home country, the Queen Sonja Competition – she has been a singer to watch. With her youthful dramatic full-bodied soprano, she has since enchanted audiences on the world's great stages in roles such as Sieglinde in...

Set in Nagasaki, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly of 1904-07, with a libretto by Giuseppe Giacoso and Luigi Illica, explores the relationship between the American naval officer Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San from the city’s Omara district. Cio-Cio-San, whom Pinkerton both affectionately and patronisingly addresses as Madam Butterfly, takes their love so seriously that she converts to Christianity, and is consequently ostracised by her family. He, on the other hand, sees their...

Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 French-language play, Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca of 1900 is one opera that few directors choose to set in anything other than its original time and place. There are exceptions to this rule, but when all of the action can be linked to a real historical event on a precise date, there are certainly advantages to retaining the intended setting, and many risks associated with changing it. The entire story takes place during the afternoon,...

Like the Shakespeare play upon which it is based, Giuseppe Verdi’s penultimate opera Otello of 1887 is the story of a general in the Venetian military whose skills in managing political and personal affairs do not match those he has demonstrated in fighting. When his ensign Iago feels Otello has sidelined him for promotion, he lays a trap to make Otello believe his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful, and the general falls whole-heartedly for the deception with disastrous...