Two tickets please.
Tonight, I’m joined by my friend Aaron from grad school. A likable tall genius always willing to lend a hand or listen when our grad school family needs counsel. He is one of my favorite people and I regret we left grad school with too many things unresolved. Is the Argo the same ship or a different ship? I’m not sure we ever reached a definitive conclusion.
Flames snap yellow and blue outside the Academy of Music. The lights and brick here always makes me feel like a time traveler. A smiling usher greets us, and he is architected in bright gold and white like a Seraph. This gate keeper must either like our looks or really pity our seats in the Academies vertigo-inducing family circle.
He invites us to sit in the orchestra’s second row beneath the amazing chandelier and murals.
Spit flies and the singers oviform mouths contort with passions that transform glint sweaty modern faces into royal musculatures from centuries ago. The resonance in Eric Owens and Morris Robinson make this feel like a really special performance to attend.
Even better to see it with a friend, artist, and chess player I have so much respect for.
So what’s Don Carlo all about? He and the other characters are caught up in the zeitgeist of history. Don Carlo loves Elisabeth and sympathizes with the people of Flanders, but this puts him at odds with his father, King Philip II of Spain. Phillip is arranged to marry Elisabeth to ally with France. He is also trying to keep happy the Grand Inquisitor, begging him to question should the ‘throne yield to the alter?’ Will their be love for Don Carlo? Is personal freedom more important than obligations to the State?
Notes on the production
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Composer……………………Verdi
Don Carlo………………….….Dimitri Pittas
King Phillip II……………….. Eric Owens
The Grand Inquisitor….. Morris Robinson
Elisabeth De Valois…….. Leah Crocetto
Princess Eboli…………..…..Michelle Deyoung
Rodrigo…………………….…….Troy Cook
Conductor………………..…….Corrado Rovaris
Philadelphia Opera
5/29/15