It’s the one that got away: Richard Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle, which the Washington National Opera has been trying to put on for a decade now. They got three-quarters of the way through, with Siegfried in 2009, before running out of money and losing the fourth installment to the San Francisco Opera.
Now, the dividends of [...]
Patron Saints? The Post's Marc Fisher profiles Mera and Donald Rubell, the Miami art collectors who are planning to open a museum in Southwest, whose collection fuels the Corcoran's new mega-exhibit 30 Americans, and whose Capitol Skyline Hotel just hosted the (e)merge art fair. Of Washington and its cultural appeal to outsiders, Mera says: “We [...]
It’s hard to believe, given all its pageantry and extravagance, that opera was once a genuinely popular art form that catered to the lowest common denominator. But there are a few operas that remind you of the genre’s onetime mass appeal. Tosca is one of them.
Opera snobs look down their noses at Puccini [...]
Ally Schweitzer and I lead this week's arts section with our look into how and why Zep Fest—a massive tribute to Led Zeppelin set to take place Memorial Day weekend at National Harbor—failed. Michael West does a close viewing of three videos featuring saxophonist George Botts Sr.—the only recorded legacy left behind by the late [...]
The Washington National Opera got a new lease on life yesterday, in the form of a long-awaited takeover by the Kennedy Center. The esteemed but cash-strapped institution, part-time home of Placido Domingo, has been waiting for a financial rescue for some time. The nonprofit WNO went from earning a positive net revenue of $2.5 million [...]
We should have seen it coming: Last week, Plácido Domingo announced he is leaving for L.A. next June, trading “Hollywood for ugly people” for Hollywood. The opera superstar of Three Tenors fame (though he's now a baritone) had long had his hands full as the often-absentee director of the Washington National Opera, splitting his [...]
Good morning! The Washington National Opera revealed its 2010-2011 season this week after announcing in December it would be scaled back to five productions. Director and world-famous tenor Plácido Domingo (right) said the weak economy has made raising money increasingly difficult, which also means a fairly conservative season of popular, mostly German and Italian works—a [...]
