Sergey Antonov performs Tchaikovsky at this year’s Astoria Music Festival.
Antonov photos: Sheryl Todd/Astoria Daily Photo [click to enlarge]
We had a lovely week of rehearsals and concerts for the first week of the Astoria Music Festival. Last Friday’s concert was the opening concert with the Astoria Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of conductor Keith Clark. The concert opened with Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony (the Italian). The second half was taken up by highlights from Verdi’s great opera La Traviata. The cast of leads, two from the Metropolitan Opera (baritone Richard Zeller and soprano Emily Pulley) and one from the Chicago Lyric Opera (tenor Mark Panuccio) all sang terrifically – showing world-class form. Pulley’s climactic aria was especially hair-raising with its pyrotechnics, and Zeller’s beautiful bel canto singing was spectacular.