Poster graphic courtesy of Livermore Valley Opera
I never got around to noting that this season presented opportunities to see Verdi's La traviata and Mozart's Così fan tutte twice each, because Livermore Valley Opera and Opera San José are staging them both. I reviewed both the LVO Traviata (with a vocally and dramatically splendid performance by Avery Boettcher as Violetta) and the OSJ Così, and enjoyed them both a lot. (I will here note that Ricardo José Rivera, whom I loved as Papageno and Guglielmo at recent OSJ performances, stepped into the Met HD broadcast of I Puritani and performed magnificently. I suspect we might not be seeing him in the regional companies again.)
The LVO Così that's opening on Feb. 28 looks strongly cast; I've liked everyone I know who is in it. Meryl Dominguez was a good Donna Anna in LVO's Don Giovanni; Courtney Miller was excellent in the strongly-cast Pocket Tartuffe; Samuel Kidd was terrific in several SFO appearances during his Adler years; Eugene Brancoveanu is a wonderful singer who has been a mainstay of Bay Area companies for many years now.
I've seen most of LVO's productions in the last few years, and they've been reliably good to excellent, with a number of memorable individual performances, good production values, and vigorous conducting by Alexander Katsman. Consider, also, that the 500-seat Bankhead Theater has no bad seats and is a great place to see opera.
So consider this a vigorous plug for Così and the company.
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