"Opera experiences" Personal Page by german_eagle

Intermission at the Semper Opera house - time for people watching in the splendid lobby. Performance that night was DON CARLO (Verdi), a crappy production, but with excellent soloists, chorus and orchestra.

One of the highlights in my entire life as an opera lover was the premiere of RIGOLETTO (Verdi) with Zeljko Lucic, Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Florez, three of the top stars of the opera currently. The production was very good, too, the other soloists were excellent as well and the orchestra + chorus were good as usual.

From left: Fabio Luisi (conductor), Georg Zeppenfeld (Sparafucile), Juan Diego Florez (Duke of Mantua), Nikolaus Lehnhoff (director), Diana Damrau (Gilda), Zeljko Lucic (Rigoletto), Christa Mayer (Maddalena)

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE was another nice production I enjoyed at the Semper Opera - beautiful staging/costumes, excellent soloists.

Some of the best singing I have ever heard live was by Edita Gruberova - I had the pleasure to hear her at the Semper Opera twice. In 2008 right on my birthday she appeared for LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR. I bet the madness scene cannot be done any better than by her that night.

Very appropriate for New Year's Eve I attended a performance of FLEDERMAUS (The Bat) some years ago with my parents (before the ticket prices started rising outrageously for this special night). It was fabulous. Funny production, nothing for the prudes :-)

On 24 June 2009 I attended OTELLO at the Semperoper. Wonderful music, crappy production. Ok, I have seen worse productions. But there's a background action going on that totally distracts from the main action.

Anyway, the cast was in parts spectacular. Farnocchia (Desdemona), Gavanelli (Jago) and Kim (Cassio) were sensational. Especially the first two received huge ovations and bravi. I almost forgot to breathe when Desdemona had her aria in Act 4 (?). Lotric (Otello) was not very good, but he didn't ruin the evening either. The chorus was great as usual, the conductor (Zanetti), however, was a bit lame - no inspiration. But the singular instruments, horns and the celli e.g., were superb again.

  • Page Updated Jul 23, 2010
  • Report Abuse

More Personal Pages (1)

Comments

Share your travels with the world!

Join Now!
Top 1,000 Travel Writer
Member Rank:
0 0 0 5 1
Forum Rank:
0 0 2 6 6
Real Name
Ingo
Location
Dresden, Germany
Member Since
Jun 29, 2002

Badges & Stats

  • 1,922 Reviews
  • 7,141 Photos
  • 341,777PageViews
  • 9 Countries
  • 77 Cities

Latest Activity

See All Activity

Travel Interests

See All Travel Interests (5)

Top hotels

Paris Hotels
22145 Reviews - 53809 Photos
Orlando Hotels
3078 Reviews - 5774 Photos
New York City Hotels
15551 Reviews - 30943 Photos
London Hotels
23056 Reviews - 47246 Photos
Rome Hotels
11939 Reviews - 26463 Photos
Cancún Hotels
1927 Reviews - 3713 Photos
Myrtle Beach Hotels
319 Reviews - 425 Photos
Las Vegas Hotels
8353 Reviews - 17025 Photos
Manila Hotels
1905 Reviews - 4447 Photos
Baguio Hotels
325 Reviews - 885 Photos
Toronto Hotels
4263 Reviews - 8768 Photos
Melbourne Hotels
3341 Reviews - 7498 Photos
Goa Hotels
2036 Reviews - 3787 Photos
Istanbul Hotels
7623 Reviews - 19412 Photos
Panama City Beach Hotels
193 Reviews - 288 Photos