A weekend at the Vienna Opera will convince you that this house, under the the masterful hand of Frenchman Dominique Meyer, is always in good health.  In mid-April this year, audiences were able to spend three days seeing three facets of what determines the quality of such an institution - while at the same time enjoying one of those moments that make opera legendary! On Friday, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale brought together an almost ideal quartet: tenorissimo Juan...

Dark and mysterious is the start of this new production of Otello at the Easter Festival in Salzburg. Desdemona and Otello appear on the vast empty stage embracing each other till the music starts. A huge soft transparent piece of cloth is smoothly waving over the stage like a huge sail and vail. And here he is. Un angelo - the angel, an idea and addition to the cast by French director Vincent Boussard. Played by the dancer Sofia Pintzou, the angel accompanies the story throughout the...

Don Giovanni of 1787 is one of three operas that Mozart wrote with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (the others being Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte). It tells of the eponymous hero, or rather antihero, who effortlessly conquers thousands of women. Although in the process he makes many enemies, the ladies he has cheated have a habit of coming back for more or trying to save him, and in the end he is responsible for his own downfall. When the ghost of the...