Thank you CBill for lovely picture you posted today.
Placido Domingo and Cristina
Gallardo-Domas as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and his wife, Matilde, in a scene
from Los Angeles Opera's 2010 premiere of Daniel Catan's 'Il Postino.' The same
production and cast are now performing in Neruda's homeland. (Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles
Times / July 13, 2012)
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Two years after starring in its premiere in Los Angeles, Placido
Domingo brought “Il Postino,” the opera
about the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, to
Neruda's homeland.
The opera by the late Daniel Catan just concluded
a run at the Municipal Theater of Santiago
starring Domingo, who is L.A. Opera's general director. The performances
featured other leading cast members from the L.A. production. Conducting is
Grant Gershon, the resident conductor of Los Angeles Opera, who also led the
orchestra for the L.A. premiere.
The opening night performance in Santiago won a
“thunderous ovation” from a house that included Chilean President Sebastian
Pinera and First Lady Cecilia Morel Montes, reported the La Tercera
newspaper.
“We were lucky to have seen Domingo in a role that suits him, without the
baritone incursions that definitely don’t suit him,” wrote the critic for La
Segunda. “His Neruda was absolutely marvelous and, like his 1967 performances in
“Carmen” and “Andrea Chenier,” those who were lucky enough to have seen it will
remember it for the next 45 years as a great event.”The critic for Las Ultimas Noticias said that hosting "Il Postino" "raises the Municipal Theater many rungs toward aligning it with the major theaters of the world….It’s glorious that [Domingo] has done it with a celebration of Neruda.”
And El Mercurio predicted that “the resounding success" of "Il Postino" will make Catan's opera “a title that’s sure to pack the Municipal Theater each time it’s mounted. It will be part of the collective unconsciousness.”
The international tour of "Il Postino" has also
included Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, Teatro
Belles Artes in Mexico City
and the Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico. In May, “Il Postino”
had its East Coast premiere, in a separate production by Philadelphia's Center
City Opera Theater.
Domingo will cap his Chilean stay with a free concert Tuesday at Santiago’s
Movistar Arena, joined by soprano Ana Maria Martinez. The English-language
publication I Love Chile reported that crowds had begun lining up for tickets at
4 a.m. Sunday at three different distribution spots, five hours before they
became available. The 9,412 seats were gone within minutes. Domingo had last
sung in Chile in 2007.
In other Domingo news, Sony
Classical announced this week that an album in which he sings duets with Josh
Groban, Harry
Connick Jr., Susan
Boyle, Megan Hilty of NBC’s “Smash,” Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins,
German singer-songwriter Xavier Naidoo and his son, Placido Domingo Jr., will be
released Oct. 16. Domingo also will solo on some tracks, including “Besame
Mucho,” which is listed as the closing number for his free show in Santiago.
Domingo has been in the pop-crossover duets game
since his hit 1981 album, “Perhaps Love,” on which he sang the title track with
its composer, John Denver.
Denver also played guitar behind Domingo’s rendition of “Annie’s Song.” The
album, among the first pop-oriented sallies by a modern opera star, sold more
than 1.5 million copies in its first 18 months in the shops.
