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!