Frankfurter Allgemeine 30.05.2017

Munich’s new Ballo in maschera has received much critical acclaim: ‘This production shows what a utopia opera can be’ (Abendzeitung). Ten years after stepping down as music director of the Bavarian State Opera, Zubin Mehta returned to Munich in March 2016 to celebrate his 80th birthday conducting Verdi’s masterpiece for the first time in a staged production. His cast features some of today’s finest Verdi singers: soprano Anja Harteros, singing Amelia for the first time and ‘filling every note with Verdian intensity’, tenor Piotr Beczala as a ‘visually and vocally dashing Riccardo’ and George Petean as an ‘exemplary’ Renato (Neue Musikzeitung).

An operatic dream came true in May 2016, when two singers made their role debuts as Lohengrin and Elsa at the Dresden State Opera.
Previously at home in French and Italian lyric tenor roles, Piotr Beczala was expanding his repertory in a direction that many opera fans had long wanted him to explore, while Anna Netrebko – previously hailed as the “queen of bel canto” – was undertaking her first Wagnerian role. It was also her first foray into the lyric-dramatic repertory.