The Opera Skimmer

Check out the news at San Diego Opera with our new Opera Skimmer. The most current articles, interviews and reviews are all available at a glance. Click on any article to read it in its entirety.

Married singers to play star-crossed couple in 'Romeo and Juliet' opera

North County Times
Don't tell the others, but tenor Stephen Costello is soprano Ailyn Perez's favorite Romeo, and she's had a few — on stage, that is.
Costello, Perez's real-life husband, is just getting started with this particular role, which he sings for the first time when the two make their San Diego Opera debuts this weekend in Charles Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet" at the San Diego Civic Theatre. The opera is based on William Shakespeare's play.

Opera: Married couple pretend they are lovers

San Diego Uptown News
If art imitates life, why can’t life imitate art? That seems to be the case in San Diego Opera’s upcoming production of Charles Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet,” when real-life couple Stephen Costello and Ailyn Perez portray the world’s most famous star-crossed lovers.
Opera buffs might be aware of another prominent real-life couple, Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu, who sang the roles in PBS’ romantic film adaptation of the opera that aired as part of its “Great Performances” series.

Maria Nockin talks to Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez

Music & Vision Daily
When you see Romeo and Juliet as a play, the dramatic moments go by very fast. The opera emphasizes and prolongs them. — Ailyn Pérez
On a beautiful sunny day punctuated by a few clouds blowing in from the nearby Pacific Ocean, I came to San Diego Opera's eighteenth floor harbour-view office to interview the young couple that will be singing Romeo and Juliet for the company this month. Over the past year, Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez have become two of the most popular young singers appearing at major opera houses around the world. Stephen arrived first, so I started by asking him about his background.

Verdi's 'Nabucco' from San Diego Opera, enjoyed by MARIA NOCKIN

Music & Vision Daily
"[Fink] sang with powerful resonant tones punctuated by beautifully lyric passages that showed the warmth in his voice."
Nabucco was Giuseppe Verdi's third opera. His first, Oberto, was a moderate success and he was commissioned to write two more for the La Scala theatre in Milan. Unfortunately, his second work, a comedy called Un giorno di regno, was not a success and had only one performance. It had not been long since the composer's first wife, Margherita, had passed away. As a result, the comedy written in the midst of these tragic circumstances was not his best work. Nor was he happy with the singers given to him by the theater. Verdi's own assessment: 'Certainly the music was to some extent to blame, but then, so too was the performance.' On 9 March 1842, the twenty-nine-yearold composer got another chance at success and grasped it with a firm hand.

NABUCCO: Verdi's Nebuchadnezzar II

SD Jewish World
"This is grand opera at its best"
SAN DIEGO–There are many good reasons why you should see the San Diego Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco, By the time you read this review, there will be only two performances left.
This is grand opera at its best: The sets, costumes, solo singers, the chorus, and the orchestra, the musical value of the entire work, the drama, and yes, the premise. This is a freely recreated Biblical story of CII, and about the Jews and the Babylonian exile, with words and music that are accessible and relevant.

Fink, Valayre and Aceto in San Diego Opera's Exceptional Nabucco

Opera Warhorses
“with much to praise in every part of the production, the stunning performance of Fink that was its most remarkable feature.”
The two operas are written in different styles, of course. No part of “Nabucco” is intended to be funny. Most of “Don Pasquale”, excepting perhaps the scene in which Pasquale expresses his despair at his humiliation, is meant to be serious. But both “Nabucco” and “Don Pasquale” were Donizetti artistic products that occupied his time during the years 1842 and 1843. He himself wrote “Pasquale”. But he also took on the task of assisting Verdi in the diffusion of “Nabucco” to Austria after its successful premiere in Milan.

San Diego Opera Revives Verdi's 'Nabucco'

SanDiego.com
When it comes to the early operas of Giuseppe Verdi, there are two opposing schools: One says these early attempts by the great Italian operatic master are sadly overlooked and are worthy of ambitious revivals, and the other posits that given the large canon of mature Verdi operas available, there is no point in producing those operas in which he was still mastering his craft.

OPERA REVIEW: Static staging, costumes hinder musically glorious 'Nabucco'

North County Times
"the orchestral playing under the baton of Edoardo Muller was rhythmically confident and musically strong"
Among Giuseppe Verdi's greatest hits, classical music announcers tend to favor the lilting beauty of his gorgeous "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves." But it's rare that operagoers get to see the breakthrough work, "Nabucco," from which this famous chorus is taken.

San Diego Opera's 'Nabucco' is dazzling

San Diego News Network
San Diego Opera clearly has a hit in its superb production of Verdi’s rarely-performed “Nabucco.” Loosely based on Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and enslavement of the Jews in Babylon, the opera, considered to be Verdi’s first masterpiece, is musically exciting, visually stunning, and moves along at a breakneck pace.

San Diego Opera presents Verdi's 'Nabucco'

Opera West
"I have admired Mr. Fink in the past (especially in Wagner), but to me he sounds like a real Verdi baritone — and we need more of those. He has a wonderful full voice that fills your ears."
“Nabucco” is early Verdi. Very early Verdi, in fact, and his first big success. You can hear some Donizetti, Bellini and even some Haydn in there somewhere, but you can also hear the birth of a new composer and a new kind of opera.

Opera review: Verdi was lucky; San Diego audience less so

The San Diego Union-Tribune
"The choruses in "Nabucco" are alternately grand and severe, and Simmons' singers met every challenge with the warm, precisely balanced sound — whether rattling the roof or barely audible whispering — that is now their trademark."
Giuseppe Verdi did not see much of the March 9, 1842, première of “Nabucco” on the stage of Milan’s La Scala opera house. It was taking place above his head. The 29-year-old composer was in the orchestra pit where, as he turned pages for two of the players, he was alarmed, as the first act ended, to see the audience jump to its feet in a noisy demonstration. It was not a protest, however, but a roar of approval that, in a moment, lifted him to the summit of Italian composers, and put the equivocal receptions to his first two operas behind him.