September 2008

Further reviews for DAS LIEBESVERBOT has confirmed the wonderful success of Nic’s Glimmerglass Opera’s production this past summer. In the LONDON TIMES Literary Supplement, Joseph Horowitz wrote: “Nicholas Muni’s Glimmerglass production was as ingeniously sophisticated as the opera is sporadically callow. Muni and the designer John Conklin updated the action to the present day. The mafioso touches included leather jackets and shades. There was also plenty of sex, which lent credibility to Friedrich’s windy expostulations against depravity. By applying a grain of salt where Wagnerian excesses were least redeemable, Muni secured maximum impact and minimal disappointment. As revealed at Glimmerglass, Das Liebesverbot emerged – as it generally does not in the Wagner literature – as an exercise mightily freighted with great things to come. Though not remotely a candidate for repertoire status, this is an opera that deserves to travel – and so does the Muni/Conklin production.”