Rigoletto Roundup

Hmm. A range of critical thought (now with Joshua Kosman):

• Lisa Hirsch in Classical Review
• Joshua Kosman in the Chron. He's more enthused about Lucic than I was and apparently was affected less by the annoying opening-night goings-on than I was.
• Jason Serinus in SFCV is mostly in agreement with me on opening night; see the comments for his thoughts on the alternate cast. I don't know where he was sitting, but Pomakov was not good from my seat.
• Richard Scheinin in the Merc likes it a whole lot more than I did. I understand why they double-cast it: see David Gockley's many statements about the cost of moving sets around. Twelve performances with a single cast would drag out over more than two months because you need to give the singers a rest. And the twelve Rigoletti and twelve Tosci are paying the bills for the season, enabling the company to do Lohengrin, Moby-Dick, The Secret Garden, and The Gospel of Mary Magdalen.
• Opera Tattler saw opening night and second night.
• SF Mike was there and has fashion notes; he liked Lucic better than I did.
• Axel Feldheim liked Demuro and Lucic better than I did.