Friday, September 05, 2014

New on the SFO Web Site

San Francisco Opera has posted videos for the first couple of this season's productions, Norma and Susannah. I note the following:
  • Barton and Radvanovsky sound pretty damn great together.
  • Luisotti will probably manage to stay with the singers in the actual performances.
  • Berti sounds like Richard Margison, hooking into every even moderately high note. Maybe they should have put Jovanovich in this one instead of Susannah.
  • The Norma costumes & wigs are, uh, dubious.
  • Racette sounds pretty good in the Susannah excerpts.
  • Sounds like the pit/stage coordination problems are similar to those in Norma, and one expects, etc.
  • Chorus sounds less sure of themselves in Susannah but admittedly the "Guerra" chorus is not especially challenging.
  • Sets and costumes look good.
  • I listened to about half of Susannah a couple of weeks ago, and it's very beautiful! Buy a ticket if you haven't got one.
The fake audience applause at the end of each video is obviously fake and should be removed, though!

2 comments:

Dr.B said...

Sigh. After listening so much to Cecilia's Norma, I found Luisotti dull and boring. Oh well.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Reminding me that I should dig up that recording from the heap....