Porgy Amor
A cynical member of Generation X, Louisville native Todd Koenig rejected a society that told its youth the answers could be found in the MTV video games. His exploration of 20th-century popular music led to a study of piano and a love of jazz. In his twenties, he began to listen to classical music – first symphonic works, chamber music, and keyboard literature, then song cycles, masses and oratorios. Five years into that period, he ventured into one of the few remaining uncharted territories: opera. He has familiarized himself with the standard repertory and much outside of it, and has advocated the art form to friends his age or younger who love music and theater. Since September 2015, as "Porgy Amor," he has written reviews, history and think pieces (sometimes all at the same time) for parterre box. The opera he loves above all others is Verdi's Falstaff, which he has described as the work of a very old man, with which a listener can grow old.
Andrea Andermann is the veteran film producer who had the notion to assemble top-flight talent from the worlds of music and cinema for a generously funded film of Tosca.
The DVD of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen‘s 2013 opera The Picture of Dorian Gray.
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
When Sonja Frisell‘s Met production of Aïda was new and starred Oklahoma native Leona Mitchell, the similarly-intialled Latonia Moore was nine years old, singing in the choir of her pastor grandfather’s church.
>What does a great opera production do, and what does a bad production fail to do?
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
The UK’s first-ever production of Poliuto, now available from Opus Arte on DVD, set the lions of Rome among the lambs of Glyndebourne.
Now we have considered the three “winners” in the Tristan competition, let’s turn to the also-rans, or, to be more optimistic, the runners up.
Sometimes when you find the club that will have you as a member, you do not easily give up your spot.
“Has anyone ever seen a truly great production of this opera?”
What we really need, some seem to believe, is fuller representation of the 19th century.
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
There is a self-effacing quality to Jonas Kaufmann’s concert film An Evening with Puccini.
With February 14th falling on a Sunday, there will be no Valentine’s Day Met performance this year.
A woman reads from the Bible. There is a dance scene in a tavern. The discovery of blood gives away the protagonist.
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
It would be generous to say that history comes alive on the operatic stage.
Enthusiasm is contagious–you have to cover up carefully lest it make you sick.
Unlike my friend Greg Freed, who entertainingly wrote of his ambivalence about seeing Il trovatore in a movie theater this season, I have embraced the Met Live in HD transmissions as a part of the modern operagoing experience.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.