La Favorite: A Chance to Hear Jamie Barton’s Voice For the Ages

If someone ever asked you to write an homage to “bel canto” opera, you’d probably write something very much like Gaetano Donizetti’s La Favorite (1840). He certainly did. La Favorite has all the requisite parts: flowing melody, relatively apt musical equivalence to what’s going on in the drama, some gangbuster…