09 Mar 2009

Bel canto, an escape into beauty

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article5859018.ece

Igor Toronyi-Lalic [Times Online, 9 March 2009]

The sets are moth-eaten, the staging is fusty, the opera itself dramatically awkward. But when the Royal Opera House presents its current revival of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s decades-old production of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, no one concentrates on any of that. The opera glasses are all pointed at Anna Netrebko, the starrily glamorous Russian diva who has made the role of Giulietta one of her favourite party pieces. And it is she who has won the critical plaudits.