Likely more than 30,000 people attended the ten-performance run of the Met’s recent Giulio Cesare (with many thousands more viewing its April 27 HD-transmission). Probably no more than 100 gathered Tuesday in a curtained-off space in the lobby of NYC’s Gershwin Hotel to witness the North American premiere of Rodrigo by operamission. But much of this wildly uneven version of Handel’s second opera felt more deeply genuine than the Met’s more polished, yet vapid “show biz” effort. Read more »
You have only until Sunday to catch the most heart-breaking moments seen on New York City operatic stages this season when the title characters of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas—which opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday night—bid one another a final farewell. Frantically embracing the crumpled body of his dying friend, a destroyed David (played with searing intensity by Pascal Charbonneau) laments the tragic circumstances that have cost him everything he loves while a crowd proclaims him as their victorious new king in one of opera’s most wrenchingly unhappy “happy endings.” Read more »
Since its life-changing Atys first arrived in 1989 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (where the Lully returned one last time in 2011), Les Arts Florissants has presented works there which have challenged many perceptions about 17th and 18th century opera.
Giulio Cesare at the Met proved an evening that added up to much more than the sum of its uneven parts.
“I’ve lived with mendacity!—Why can’t you live with it? Hell, you got to live with it, there’s nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?”
Gotham Chamber Opera stumbled so badly Friday night with Francesco Cavalli’s 1668 Eliogabalo at The Box, it was hard to know whether to feel sad or angry—or both.
Although married five times including to the heretofore off-limits Vestal Virgin, he patronized hundreds of prostitutes while also showering political favors on his male lovers.
Cher Public