Metropolitan Opera Preview: Il Trovatore

The Met revives Verdi's blood-and-thunder masterpiece with an invigorating cast.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Man with a plan: tenor Yonghoon Lee sings "Di quella pirra" in Act III of Il Trovatore.
Photo by 

 The ne plus ultra of potboiler plots, characters written larger than Marvel® super heroes, instantly catchy, hummable tunes and a history that includes one-time participation by the Marx Brothers (in A Night at the Opera). What's not to love about Il Trovatore?

Opera Review: This...is...Jeopardy!

The Metropolitan Opera revives Turandot.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Morris (center) celebrated 1,000 performances at the Metropolitan Opera on
Tuesday. Here he appears as Timur in  Turandot with Aleksandrs Antonenko (left) as
The Unknown Prince and Maria Agresta (right) as Liù in Puccini's opera.
Photo by Marty Sohl copyright 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

Turandot is Giacomo Puccini’s final, unfinished work. It is a a grand fantasy of legendary China as reimagined through the lens of Italian romanticism. It is a farm tale, the story of an ice-hearted princess and the fearless Prince who wins her hand. It is seen (wrongly) as the end point of the genre of Italian opera. It is also, along with La bohème, the last of the Metropolitan Opera’s giant Franco Zeffirelli productions, crowded extravaganzas that evoke the opulence of a bygone era. (In this case, we’re talking about the 1980s.)