Adriel

Adriel Bettelheim is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who has covered government, politics and business for more than 20 years for the Economist Group, Bloomberg, PolitiFact and The Denver Post. His European parents began dragging him to the Met at age 7.Childhood allowances were spent at the bins of Korvettes, The Record Hunter and Tower. While studying chemistry in college, he edited the school newspaper and began dabbling in classical program notes. He has played double bass in amateur pit and community orchestras and tries to squeeze in live opera, symphonic and chamber performances whenever possible.


No contest No contest

Richard Wagner viewed dance as an essential element of art, though he used it sparingly in his operas.

on June 08, 2016 at 9:00 AM
Out of the past Out of the past

Myto’s transfer of Herbert von Karajan’s star-bedecked 1958 Die Walküre from La Scala gives collectors on a budget access to one of the legendary performances committed to tape.

on March 22, 2016 at 9:00 AM
The hill is greener The hill is greener

Live recordings of Hans Knappertsbusch conducting Parsifal seem to proliferate like stairways in M.C. Escher prints.

on February 01, 2016 at 9:30 AM
Gold diggers Gold diggers

Das Rheingold is the outlier among the Ring operas, an ensemble work with a fast-shifting plot, animated dialogue, fewer set pieces and less character development.

on December 21, 2015 at 10:00 AM
A fjord in her future A fjord in her future

Anja Silja staked a claim as a leading Senta of her era with a series of searing performances of Der Fliegende Holländer while in her early twenties.

on August 10, 2015 at 10:00 AM
“Less filling” “Less filling”

“Disciplined and intelligent.”

on June 10, 2015 at 10:16 AM
Grail mix Grail mix

Contemporary stagings of Parsifal tend to be spare, abstract affairs scrubbed of religious associations, knights in armor and, sometimes, a grail.

on April 22, 2015 at 3:46 PM
Between two worlds Between two worlds

If works like Salome and Erwartung defined modernism in the first decades of the 20th century, Die Tote Stadt and Palestrina represented the regressive avant garde.

on March 23, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Prison riot Prison riot

Herbert von Karajan once said listening to some of his old recordings made him envy painters who could simply burn the pictures they disliked.

on October 30, 2014 at 3:09 PM
No such Gluck No such Gluck

When Richard Wagner reached into the past and revised Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide, he went beyond the accepted boundaries of tinkering and more or less created a new work that’s fomented aesthetic debates ever since.

on October 06, 2014 at 10:30 AM
Speer pressure Speer pressure

One of the things that made François Girard’s 2013 production of Parsifal at the Met so compelling was the way he tried to make the tale of suffering and temptation relevant to a contemporary audience.

on September 15, 2014 at 9:00 AM
Bomb squad Bomb squad

Vienna never really forgave Erich Wolfgang Korngold for going to work in the movies.

on June 12, 2014 at 10:42 AM
Hothouse flower Hothouse flower

To some, Anne Schwanewilms will always be the soprano in the slinky black dress who replaced Deborah Voigt at Covent Garden a decade ago.

on May 14, 2014 at 10:19 AM
Blinded item Blinded item

His 75-minute setting of Oedipus in Kolonos, heard in a live 2009 performance on MDR Klassik, illustrates how Mendelssohn tried to link ancient forms with Romantic-era sensibilities by fashioning harmonically adventurous chorales and believable characters instead of abstract musical representations of mythical figures.

on April 29, 2014 at 2:38 PM
Low-fat Schoenberg Low-fat Schoenberg

With orchestral and choral forces that could outnumber a small European village, Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder is a composition designed to overwhelm.

on April 14, 2014 at 10:50 AM
Sex please: we’re British Sex please: we’re British

The finer performances of Tristan und Isolde have a way of sounding like a four-hour improvisation, the fruit of a single moment of inspiration that makes one forget how emotionally manipulative and painstakingly crafted the music really is.

on March 11, 2014 at 1:17 AM
Brass ring Brass ring

Marek Janowski’s survey of Wagner operas on PentaTone so convincingly captures the pulse and dramatic flow of many of the works that the music-making at times sounds almost effortless.

on February 13, 2014 at 6:00 AM
Meadow festival Meadow festival

Beneath the pageantry, the paeans to German art and the self-referential allusions to the creative process, Die Meistersinger is a story about a community and human qualities like love, friendship, envy and hatred.

on January 17, 2014 at 10:21 PM
Semi: Colon Semi: Colon

The abrupt withdrawal of Katharina Wagner from an abridged seven-hour Ring cycle she was to direct at the Teatro Colon last year prompted no shortage of scorn and Schadenfreude.

on November 05, 2013 at 5:15 PM
The music lovers The music lovers

The curious things about accepted wisdom is that sometimes it’s correct.

on October 12, 2013 at 6:20 PM
To the hilt To the hilt

Marek Janowski’s second recorded Ring cycle began on an off note, with a Rheingold that was fleet and lucid but failed to impress in the important musical moments.

on September 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM
Opening knight Opening knight

The 1965 season was a time of big changes at the Vienna State Opera.

on August 29, 2013 at 9:15 AM
Hi, honey, I’m gnome Hi, honey, I’m gnome

Between Fidelio and Der Freischutz there was “Romantische Oper,” a type of musical drama descended from medieval mystery plays in which ghosts, gnomes and other “invisibles” get entangled in the lives of unsuspecting people.

on July 15, 2013 at 11:05 PM
Springtime for Wagner Springtime for Wagner

Could Marek Janowski do for Wagner what the early music movement did for the Baroque and Classical repertory?

on June 26, 2013 at 2:34 PM
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