There are two difficulties with writing about Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. One is saying anything fresh about them. The other is seeing them at all.
A new staging of ‘La forza del destino’ offers audiences the chance to ponder the paradoxes at the heart of what is often considered Verdi's most “Catholic” opera.
She had no spite or worldly cunning, but she refused to massage the egos of those around her or to conceal her overwhelming belief in the rightness of her vision.