Wichita Grand Opera opens a new production of Puccini’s masterpiece Turandot on Friday, August 28, 2015, at 7pm in WGO’s home theater of Century II Concert Hall in Wichita, Kansas. WGO makes its debut at Overland Park’s Carlsen Center with a second performance of the production on Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 3pm. The cast features stars from the world’s most prestigious opera houses, and will be conducted by European maestro Martin Mazik. The production is directed by American director Shayna Leahy, with sets designed by Margaret Ann Pent and executed by European scenic artist Stefan Pavlov, costumes by Charles Caine and John Leymeyer, and lighting by Sean Roberson.
This production of Giuseppi Verdi's opera based on Macbeth, the famed play by William Shakespeare, is a musical succès d'estime but falls short in the cinematic arena. Shirley Verrett stars as the murderous and ambitious Lady Macbeth, Leo Nucci co-stars as her similarly ambitious but slightly more scrupulous husband, who has the good grace to feel some horror at his deeds before he does them. The entire opera was filmed inside a Belgian castle, and some of the smaller parts are obviously lip-synched to pre-recorded music.
Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Samuel Edward Ramey (born March 28, 1942) is an American operatic bass. At the height of his career he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique to enable him to sing the music of Handel, Mozart and Rossini, yet with power enough to handle the more overtly dramatic roles in Verdi and Puccini.
By browsing this website, you accept our cookies policy.