Our Own JJ gets into the traditional holiday mood, journalist style, by cobbling together a listicle of last-minute shopping options. [New York Post]
“In an unlikely venue—a converted gymnasium off Avenue B—one of New York’s newest opera companies is keeping musical tradition alive.” [New York Post]
“An atomic explosion kicked off the last act of Gounod’s Faust Tuesday at the Met, but the production as a whole was more dud than bomb.” [New York Post]
“Rumors were that an ‘Occupy’-something group would disrupt Wednesday night’s US premiere of Kommilitonen! But the Juilliard Opera performance went off without offstage fireworks, and proved to be a well-crafted and moving meditation on student activism.” [New York Post] (Photo: Nan Melville)
Open your eyes, sleepyheads! In the news this morning, our own JJ raves about Satyagraha at the Met (“a masterpiece of musical and visual art”); the ever-articulate Nico Muhly takes aim at the Met’s production values (“Mercedes Bass or Anne Ziff paid for the opera. What do you think is going to happen?”); and NYCO’s orchestra and chorus offer to work for free.
“It’s the understudy’s job to save the show, and that’s just what Jay Hunter Morris did Thursday at the Met in the daunting title role of Wagner’s Siegfried.” [New York Post]
“An eagerly awaited production of Mozart’s masterpiece Don Giovanni —staged by Tony winner Michael Grandage (Red)—limped into the Met Thursday dead on arrival.” [New York Post]
“Her catfight with another princess over the emperor’s crown might have been an outtake from The Real Housewives of Babylon.” [New York Post] (Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)
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