Friday, June 13, 2014

Warhorses

Joshua Kosman tells you all about why I have started to skip most revivals of warhorses, in a review of San Francisco Opera's La Traviata. This revival was planned for Sonya Yoncheva, who withdrew from this and the fall Boheme production on account of pregnancy, and might have been better with her, but Luisotti's erratic conducting was not predictable, whereas Saimir Pirgu's weak showing as Alfredo was entirely predictable based on his poor appearance in I Capuletti.

P. S. Pirgu is singing the Shepherd in King Roger at the ROH next season, a role taken brilliantly by William Burden at Santa Fe in 2012. Too bad; the ROH could have hired Burden or any number of better singers for the part.

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