Word: macneills
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Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Neil MacNeil/ Washington
Reported by Barbara B. Dolan/Detroit and Neil MacNeil/ Washington, with other bureaus...
...George J. Church. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett, Neil MacNeil and Ross H. Munro/Washington, with other bureaus
...relic like Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur on the boards. Its plot, however, is operatic gold. Based on a play by Gabriele d'Annunzio, it recounts an episode from Dante's Inferno. Francesca (Soprano Renata Scotto) is tricked into marrying the deformed Gianciotto (Baritone Cornell MacNeil) when his handsome brother Paolo (Tenor Placido Domingo) comes courting in his place. Inevitably, though, wife and brother-in-law fall into an adulterous embrace and are discovered by Gianciotto, who murders them...
...credit, the Met has given Francesca the full star treatment. Domingo is in top form, Scotto's kittenish acting is appropriate, even if her distressing vocal wobble is not, and MacNeil's fraying baritone sounds better than it has in years. Ezio Frigerio's sets evoke both the splendor and the asceticism of medieval Ravenna and Rimini, but Director Piero Faggioni compensates for the music's static quality by moving the cast around a bit too hectically. The second act, however, is spectacular. It depicts a ferocious battle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, replete with...