Word: monacos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This utter fluency in the art may account for Del Monaco's range. As a young director in small German cities like Ulm and Dortmund, he was radical; he set a Butterfly in Saigon (long before Miss Saigon) and a Forza del Destino in Spain during the Civil War. But he is best known for productions that are traditional in concept, modern in their psychological astuteness and, occasionally, rude in their action. At the climax of the love duet in the Met's Butterfly, Pinkerton begins stripping his bride, who throws back her head in ecstasy. On opening night...
...years Del Monaco has worked closely with American set and costume designer Michael Scott, both in Bonn, where Del Monaco is artistic director, and on the international circuit. Boccanegra is a triumph of that partnership. The first act's set, again a house and a garden, is closely modeled on Petrarch's villa outside Padua, a mellow, roseate brick with a graceful staircase. To gaze at it is to be transported to the vivid politics of 14th century Genoa...
...Monaco, the country and the opera house are often decisive when he chooses his approach. "I am a different director in Europe from America," he says. Especially in Germany, land of state subsidies and a public that may have seen 50 versions of Figaro, he may go the experimental route. In Bonn in April, for instance, he will produce a Manon Lescaut inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. In the U.S., where opera must pay for itself, companies can rarely afford productions that may be one-year sensations. When Met general manager Joseph Volpe ordered up Butterfly, he wanted...
...enthusiastic, excitable man, Del Monaco is a hands-on operative with his casts. At a piano rehearsal for Boccanegra, a chorister who stepped in front of the hero received a genial tongue lashing. The hapless soprano assigned to cover for Kiri Te Kanawa should she get sick had a bad day, going left when she should have gone right, up the stairs when she belonged on the ground, picking a prop flower off cue. At the beginning of the glorious duet in which the heroine learns that Boccanegra is her father, she began playfully fingering his shirt. For the umpteenth...
...Monaco had to throw Boccanegra together in eight days-the chronically overbooked Placido Domingo was late in starting rehearsals; Vladimir Chernov, the Boccanegra, was silenced by flu; and Cheryl Studer, who was to sing Boccanegra's daughter, canceled. In a remarkable piece of last-minute luck, the Met was able to sign Te Kanawa. On opening night the ensemble came through under conductor James Levine's eloquent direction. Only the massive council-chamber scene looked tentative. Viva grand opera that is grand...