René Barbera News
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2024-04-25
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2023-06-22 20:47:36
“Blame it on the summer knight”
On June 20, a rather breezy, pleasant cool summer evening, the soprano Gabriella Reyes, tenor René Barbera and baritone Will Liverman took over the Summerstage space with a wide-ranging, ambitious recital program with Dimitri Dover tickling the ivories.
2021-01-15 08:24:34
Donizetti on the cusp: never a success in his lifetime, Opera Rara reveals much to enjoy in the composer's 1829 opera Il Paria
Donizetti Il Paria; Albina Shagimuratova, René Barbera, Misha Kiria, Marko Mimica, Britten Sinfonia, Sir Mark Elder; Opera Rara Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 January 2021 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½) Despite its weak dramaturgy, there is music of richness and daring in an opera written a year before Donizetti's first big success12 January 1829 was a big day for Gaetano Donizetti. Aged 32, he was making his debut as Director of the Royal Theatres in Naples, a post previously held by Rossini (until 1822), with the premiere of Il Paria (something like his 29th opera). It wasn't Donizetti's first opera for Naples, but Il Paria would be the first one written as Director. Royal protocol ensured that the reaction to the first night was muted, but the opera only lasted for a few performances despite the starry cast (Adelaide Tosi, Giovanni Rubini and Luigi Lablache) and was never revived. […]
2020-06-30 19:39:00
Upcoming Streams at San Francisco Opera
Janáček’s "The Makropulos Case" with Karita Mattila as Emilia Marty Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera Well. San Francisco Opera will have two superb productions streaming in July: July 18, 2020: La Cenerentola (Cinderella), Rossini Cast: French soprano Karine Deshayes as Angelica (Cenerentola) opposite American tenor René Barbera as her Prince Charming, Don Ramiro. The cast includes baritone Efraín Solís as Dandini, baritone Carlos Chausson as Don Magnifico, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Alidoro and soprano Maria Valdes and mezzo-soprano Zanda Švēde as Angelica’s stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisbe, respectively. Jesús López-Cobos conducts. (Regular readers and friends of mine know I'm not a big fan of the Rossini comedies, but for this cast....Deshayes was a wonderful Urbain in the Paris Huguenots, René Barbera is one of the great bel canto tenors of our time, and Efraín Solís stole the show as Golaud in the WEO Pelleas two seasons ago. So I'll be watching!) July 25, 2020: Vec Makropulos (The Makropulos Case), Janáček Cast: Finnish soprano Karita […]
2020-06-25 07:14:30
Opera Rara at 50: insight talk on-line tonight
Opera Rara is 50 this year, and earlier this week there should have been a celebratory performance of Donizetti's Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo at the Barbican with Carlo Rizzi conducting the Britten Sinfonia. This hss been postponed until next year, and the event will now take place on 8 July 2021, when Carlo Rizzi conducts a cast including Misha Kiria, Albina Shagimuratova, Fabio Capitanucci, André Henriques, Heather Lowe and René Barbera [see Barbican website]. The opera is loosely based one of the stories from Cervantes Don Quixote and Donizetti wrote it in 1833 (the year after L'elisir d'amore and only a few years after Anna Bolena, Donizetti's breakthrough piece). Il furioso is not an entire stranger to the UK stage as English Touring Opera staged the work in 2015 [see Hilary's review], though the Opera Rara performance will undoubtedly benefit from a critical edition of the work. If […]
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