WHAT I SMELL:  Opera Grande opens with fruit and berries that are lightly covered with a faint hair spray accord. The fruit and berries are candied sweet in a way that reminds me of hard candies that my grandmother used to have (and in which we didn’t want).  In short time a rose enters and the combination of the fruit and rose make for a bit of an unnatural chemical mix.  As the perfume continues to develop, a warmed ambered leather seems to slide in unexpectedly.   The perfume has now moved from the fruity to this strange woody leather that is void of any moisture.  The perfume, even with the fruit, was never juicy, but now it’s completely dry as it begins to quickly powder and project.  Now the perfume feels like a chypre which to me makes it a bit more desirable, but there still resides this artificial biting note that I can’t put my finger on (maybe the nutmeg?).  in the end Opera Grande slowly makes its way to a voluminous slightly soured patchouli/vanilla powder that is rather grand in size, but not necessarily in beauty.

From the Sospiro website:

WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME:  Less Opera Grande and more Three Penny Opera.

THREE WORDS THAT DESCRIBE OPERA GRANDE:  dusty, complicated, sharpened

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT OPERA GRANDE:  No written reviews found.

BOTTOM LINE:  Opera Grande should be everything that I love;  a big floral with creamy ylang ylang that’s heady and intoxicating. Even the name conjures up big and over the top.  Instead, it’s a perfume that you hope will build up to a crescendo…but instead it just fizzles to a biting powder.  Too bad.

• Bone Rating: 2 out of possible 5 bones
• Scent:  Woody Floral
• Nose:  Christian Provenzano
• Classification:  Unisex
• Expense:  $375 for 100 ml eau de parfum