![]() ![]() Still, the drab, gray visuals do little to enhance the scenario. (Her new quasi-dread affair has more apt contemporary cool.) Mercifully gone too is Radvanovsky’s short platinum blond wig, which suggested Jean Hagen’s Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain. Newbury jettisoned some of the more unintentionally comic elements from this production’s premiere, like rolling Norma’s children on and off stage in a little goat cart. ![]() Whatever the historic justification for the production, the set seemed less evocative of ancient Gaul and more like a promising design for a Texas steakhouse chain. A pair of enormous mounted steer heads peer out at the audience. The unit set is framed by four towering gray wooden columns a large door looks out to a winter forest of bare trees as snow descends. The priestess ascends a raised wooden platform to cut her ritual mistletoe from a massive tree branch that hovers over the stage. Gaul, here takes place in what looks like a massive barn or lumber warehouse-finally, a Norma for the forestry industry. The inspiration, says director Kevin Newbury, was taken from Druid rites and the Iron Age. Instead this Norma was a hit-and-miss affair with fitful highlights by the soprano continually undermined by stagey dramatics and a bizarre and baffling production.ĭesigner David Korins’ embassy set for Lyric’s Bel Canto in 2o15 was a stunning achievement, but his revisionist take on Bellini’s Norma remains just as bewildering Saturday as it did three years ago when unveiled in San Francisco. ![]() With Sondra Radvanovsky taking on the title role of the Druid priestess, one expected to settle in for a great night of bel canto vocalism at Saturday’s opening performance. Norma’s funeral pyre failing to ignite at the climatic end of Bellini’s opera Saturday night at Lyric Opera provided an apt metaphor for the evening on the whole. Sondra Radvanovsky and Russell Thomas star in Bellini’s “Norma” at Lyric Opera. ![]()
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