Phil's Opera World

Opera in quattro atti. Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes. This review was something I started back in August 2020, then touched on in 2021 and 2022 before finishing up recently. I was in something of a competition with OperaScribe to complete this and I obviously failed. Although the Domingo 2007 recording (released in 2010)…

Opera en trois actes. Running Time: 2 hours 4 minutes. 1913 production poster by Georges Rochegrosse, Wikimedia. Fauré is not known for his operas. He wrote two (this one was first produced when he was 67 years old), but one would hardly know this from how popular he continues to be as an instrumental composer,…

Opera in three acts. Running Time: 1 hour 22 minutes. My surname is of Sicilian origin, and the island is somewhat notorious for poverty and organized crime that it is sometimes a shock to remember that, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Sicily was actually one of the most cosmopolitan and wealthiest regions of the…

Opera in three acts. Running Time: 2 hours 29 Minutes. Call this review a boys night out. SETTING: 19th century, a war torn country somewhere in Western Europe. Edgar (tenor) is the lord of Ravenswood, and although in a personal war with Henry Ashton (baritone) lord of Lammermoor, is in love with his sister Lucy…

Opera in tre atti. Running Time: 2 hours 7 minutes. This was the last opera Mascagni wrote from entirely new material. Although two more Mascagni releases would appear over the next fourteen years, both relied largely on pre-existing material. In the case of Pinotta this was a cantata named In filanda, and for Nerone a…