Acclaim for La Scala’s new Foscari: “Plácido Domingo is the definitive Francesco of recent times” (Financial Times).” Here is Plácido Domingo’s latest conquest: the leading baritone role of Francesco Foscari in Verdi’s darkly atmospheric, melodically generous early opera, based on Lord Byron’s play. Set in 15th-century Venice, I due Foscari is the forerunner of Simon Boccanegra, and Domingo’s triumph as the Doge set the seal on this critically lauded new production from Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the ultimate Verdi shrine. Declaring the legendary singer “the definitive Francesco of recent times”, the Financial Times’s reviewer also had high praise for the rest of La Scala’s superb cast, from “Andrea Concetti’s solid Loredano, to the immaculate Francesco Meli in a perfect match for Jacopo. Anna Pirozzi makes a triumphant house debut as Lucrezia. She wins hearts and minds through fearsome dramatisation and thrilling vocal power. But the revelation of the night is [conductor] Michele Mariotti.”
Salzburg Festival 2016: Die Liebe der Danae
A work narrowly linked to the Festival’s rich history, Richard Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) surely ranks among the highlights of this year’s Salzburg Festival. Krassimira Stoyanova, regular fixture at the Salzburg Festival, is heading a truly supreme cast and emerges as the “one in a thousand, the true Strauss lyric-dramatic soprano who can soar and swoop, working miracles on phrases that never stop coming” (The Artsdesk). Bass-Baritone Tomasz Konieczny, “sings this Jupiter almost unsurpassably” (FAZ). Alvis Hermanis’ colourful production brings oriental flair to the Salzach, his “staging was spectacular above all else” (Opera Today). Labelled as “too beautiful to be true”, the score presents a retrospect of Strauss’ lifework.