Tag Archive Michael Todd Simpson

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Maria Stuarda and other Powerful Women

Joyce El-Khoury (Mary Stuart), Michael Todd Simpson (Cecil) and Keri Alkema (Elizabeth I). Jacob Lucas photo c/o Seattle Opera

Joyce El-Khoury (Mary Stuart), Michael Todd Simpson (Cecil) and Keri Alkema (Elizabeth I). Jacob Lucas photo c/o Seattle Opera

I always feel a little sorry for Donizetti. He’s like a low-ranking player in the NBA – easily better at his game than anyone you’ve ever met, but forever overshadowed by his more talented peers. Donizetti worked in the first half of the 19th century and a handful of his operas are still performed today. That’s pretty good. But he’s still not as famous as the other big bel canto composers, Verdi, Rossini, and Puccini, and with good reason. His canto is bel, but to my ear, feels a little … predictable? Formulaic? But Donizetti has one advantage over his peers – an interest in powerful women.

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Get Your Papers Together to See Seattle Opera’s The Consul

consul bookletA modern, English-language opera about a woman fighting bureaucracy sounded like a painfully tedious proposition – too much like my real life. But I attended The Consul at Seattle Opera because I have season tickets.

A bleeding man bursts into a decaying apartment, forgetting to shut the door. Knocking over furniture, he falls to the floor, calling his wife. She rushes into the kitchen, trailed by his mother. The secret police discovered their meeting place; one of their friends is dead. He has been followed. John Sorel drags himself up the fire escape while his wife washes his bloody hand print from the door frame seconds before men in trench coats enter without knocking. Read More