Enrique Mazzola : Reviews

CONDUCTOR

Don Carlos in Autumn 2022

“It was exquisitely brought to life by Lyric’s first-rate pit orchestra, with Music Director Enrique Mazzola, in one of the best outings of his tenure so far, supporting, propelling and enhancing everything happening on stage and never letting the energy or the audience’s attention flag.”

– Kyle MacMillan, Chicago Sun-Times

Verdi: Macbeth, Lyric Opera of Chicago, 19 September 2021

“Mazzola was firmly in command. Verid’s score has its moments of almost carnival-like good cheer, with bouncy little tunes that set the toes tapping. Mozzolla deftly explored their darker undercurrent, finding the perfect balance between incongruous gaiety and heavy-handed grotesquery.

The orchestral sound was rich and clear, expressive without becoming cloying. Throughout, Mazzola shaped Verdi’s fluid melodies with care; momentary pauses were as eloquent as the lyrical phrases surrounding them.”

– Wynne Dellacoma, Musical America

“The company’s new music director, Enrique Mazzola, an Italian opera specialist, was in splendid form at the helm, before an orchestra quite capable of sounding otherworldly or glorious, as needed, despite the long break.”

– Nancy Malitz, Chicago Sun Times

“This production stars the chorus and orchestra, and it is impossible not to consider Mazzola’s energy and expertise as the driving force in this.”

“The orchestra seemed to play full-out, yet never covered the singers, which can be a challenge in this opera house.”

– Aaron Hunt, New City Stage

Verdi: Luisa Miller, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 2 August 2021

” Mazzola conducts with dramatic sweep, bringing muscular vigour yet an ear for exquisite instrumental detail to a refined London Philharmonic (playing a Covid-secure orchestral reduction by Tony Burke).”

– John Allison, The Telegraph

“Performed in Tony Burke’s reduction by a slimmed down London Philharmonic Orchestra under Enrique Mazzola, the opera sounds different, too – but what’s been lost in symphonic weight is repaid in clarity that sharpens the sinuous lines of Verdi’s score and makes its sombre textures all the more striking. Mazzola maintained absolute, incisive control from the ferocity of the overture to multiple hold-your-breath pianissimos. Woodwind solos emerged razor-edged and beguiling; string pizzicatos sounded like dampened thuds, heaving with foreboding.”

– Flora Wilson, The Guardian

“Yet while the sound is smaller, the conductor Enrique Mazzola makes his London Philharmonic Orchestra ensemble crackle with incredible energy.”

– Rebecca Franks, The Times

Dvorak and Haydn, London Philharmonic Orchestra, 25 March 2021

“And the camerawork after that, close-focusing on scurrying fingers and intent faces, was almost tangible in it physicality. So, to be fair, was Mazzola’s surging interpretation of Dvorak’s New World Symphony and the LPO’s taut response.

Mazzola is known chiefly as an opera conductor, and there was certainly something Verdi-like about his volatile enhancing of peaks and troughs, and the febrile susurrations of the strings in the slow movement. Yet nothing was too exaggerated to make symphonic sense, and the playing was top-notch. I wound back the streaming to hear the cor anglais solo again (something you can’t do in the concert hall), because the breath control was so phenomenal.

Energy, precision and Beethoven-like accentuation are paramount in any good performance; they were evident in every bar here.”

– Richard Morrison, The Times

Meyerbeer: Le Prophète, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 6 March 2020

“And while the synopsis of Le Prophète looks over-complex on paper, it made complete sense in the telling, powered by a superb orchestral performance under Enrique Mazzola which lit up the details of Meyerbeer’s orchestration and drove the action forward at every moment.”

– David Karlin, Bachtrack