Soraya Mafi
WNO Successfully Stages the Unstageable Candide
Wales Millennium Centre Leonard Bernstein’s Candide premiered on Broadway in 1956 where its short-run was met with puzzlement and poor reviews. While Candide has found more favourable reactions in recent decades, it remains a problematic work. What exactly is it? An opera? A musical? Welsh National Opera opts to call it an operetta – which…
Mitridate, re di Pontus, earns his (zebra) stripes, Garsington Opera
***** Sometimes it is a bore being an opera-loving academic classicist. On one hand it can be very helpful knowing the classical and mythological tales that so many operas are based on. On the other, however, directors and their designers can really get your purist heckles up. However, when this Mitridate, Re di Ponto opens…