Verdi - Rigoletto conducted by Renato Palumbo
Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin. I was covering this show so didnt get the chance to play it, which is a shame as its beautiful
Rossini - A Turk in Italy, not his best but typical Opera Buffa, lots for fun on stage
Bizet - Carmen, where every number is on the greatest hits album, a real show stopper for the audience. We have two casts and one Carmen is very much better with the castanets than the other! Its a fab production but the highlight for the audience is when the horse bows with chorus in the curtain calls. Half the band scarper to the audience side of the pit wall once the gig is over, to get the best view
I was principal for Rigoletto, which gave me the chance to play the solo....which is acually a duetto for cello and bass, but we tend to think of it as a bass solo. Its the longest solo line in the repertoire. It comes at a part of the show when Rigoletto is negotiating with an assassin in a dark alleyway. Verdi had a clear concept of what a lyrical bass solo meant - something really bad is going to happen. His other notable example is Act 4 of Otello, when the bass section play a lyrical line just before the King kills his wife Desdemona.
Riggers was fun to play.
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