Interview: Weston Hurt – the baritone with a limb difference – makes his debut with English National Opera as Rigoletto
Graham Spicer talks with baritone Weston Hurt about his disability and using it to his advantage on the opera stage.
Rigoletto
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books | dance | music & opera
Books: Amici della Scala celebrates Italy’s theatre designers – Luciano Damiani, Anna Anni, Gabriella Pescucci, Franca Squarciapino, Luisa Spinatelli
Amici della Scala has published an annual collection of books on La Scala’s designers for more than 20 years. The new collection features Luciano Damiani and others.
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news | dance | music & opera
Royal Opera House Stream goes live with 130 titles
The Royal Opera House has launched its new streaming service with 45 performances and 85 behind-the-scenes features.
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New Rigoletto brings boos back to La Scala
Mario Martone’s new production of Rigoletto at La Scala divided the public with applause for the singers but a chorus of boos for the production team.
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[Interview] “Me and my voice” American tenor Michael Fabiano on music and other passions
American tenor Michael Fabiano talks about singing Verdi and Puccini, preparing for his Turandot debut, and his many offstage activities.
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The play Quartet and the Giuseppe Verdi Rest Home, both in Milan
The Casa di Riposo per Musicisti (Rest Home for Musicians) in Milan is known simply as Casa Verdi (The Verdi Home) and, although Giuseppe Verdi never lived there, his body is buried there, together with that of his wife, Giuseppina Strepponi (the first Abigaille in the premiere of the composer’s Nabucco at La Scala in…
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Aged 97, Franco Zeffirelli will stage a new production of Rigoletto
At 95, Franco Zeffirelli is returning to the opera house to direct a new production of Rigoletto. The opera will open in September 2020 at the Royal Opera House in Muscat when the Zeffirelli will be 97. The theatre’s director, Umberto Fanni, announced the news from Zeffirelli’s glorious villa on Rome’s via Appia Antica. His…
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George Gagnidze answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Singers’ Edition
Q&A in italiano When did you start singing? When I was 13 or 14 I started singing Georgian and Russian folk songs with my sister who was played the piano. Why did you start singing? My father used to sing in a folk chorus, but not as a professional singer, it was just a hobby…
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Luciano Pavarotti, 10 years after his death, celebrated in exclusive photos from the La Scala archives
Luciano Pavarotti died ten years ago today, on 6 September 2007. Teatro alla Scala continually welcomed the great tenor to its stage for almost three decades, from 1965 until 1992. At the Milanese opera house he sang under the baton of Abbado, Prêtre, Kleiber, Patané, Gavazzeni, Karajan, Maazel and Muti. Pavarotti worked extensively with La Scala‘s…
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Renata Scotto on her childhood, her musical beginnings and her debut in Traviata at 18
Renata Scotto has been made an honorary citizen of Tovo San Giacomo, a small town near the Ligurian coast, in the Province of Savona — just a few kilometres from where I happen to be writing this article. In my career, I have received many awards, but this is the best of them all. Why…
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Marco Berti answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Singers’ Edition
Q&A in italiano When did you start singing? More or less I’ve always sung. First at my local church, then one day my cousin, who sung Ave Marie for weddings, gave me the chance to try and I did. Since then I’ve never stopped. Why did you start singing? Like almost all singers, for passion,…
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Barbara Frittoli at La Scala: odd but nice
When the line up for a recital is a soprano, pianist and clarinetist one would assume that at a certain point all three would perform together. Not at La Scala when Barbara Frittoli gave her scheduled recital. Her luxury accompanist was to have been Daniel Barenboim, but he was forced to withdraw due to an injury. La…
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Beppe Menegatti answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Directors’ Edition
Q&A When did you first go to the theatre? To see Rigoletto at the Teatro Comunale in Florence on 10 October 1939 for my tenth birthday, with Gino Bechi, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Lina Aimaro and the young Giulietta Simionato as Madelena. Why did you want to work in the theatre? In Florence, we give out presents for the Epiphany. When I was…
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American baritone Cornell MacNeil dies at 88
The American baritone Cornell MacNeil died on July 15, he was 88. He was best known for his many Verdi roles. From 1959 to 1987, he sang 26 roles in more than 600 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, including more than 100 performances of Rigoletto. In a 2007 interview James Levine commented: The larger and more…
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Interview with Plácido Domingo: ‘as long as the public come, and the theatre is sold out, I will be singing’
The Times went to Paris to talk to Plácido Domingo who is rehearsing at the Théâtre du Châtelet for the European premiere of an operatic version of Il Postino. Here are some excerpts: On his baritone roles. Rigoletto: I try not to have too much of a hump. Although they talk about him being deformed, I’m…
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Tenor Vincenzo La Scola dies at 53
Vincenzo La Scola, an Italian tenor known internationally as both an opera singer and a crossover artist, died on April 15 in Turkey, where he was giving a master class, from a heart attack. He was 53. His manager, Silvana Sintow-Behrens said on her website: It is with shock and greatest sadness that we must…
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Franz Liszt (or rather Liszt Ferenc as we must learn to call him) invented the “recital” in Milan at La Scala
Therefore it was appropriate for Italian pianist Gregorio Nardi to give a Liszt recital in Milan as part of the bicentenary celebrations of the composer’s birth. Liszt’s original invention of a concert presented by a single artist originated in a “recital” he gave in the foyer of La Scala, so Nardi presented his programme not in the main auditorium of Milan’s…
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