It says something about Boston’s opera scene that one of the most consistently ambitious events of the opera season is a one-off performance played by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
By Harry Rose
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Light streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Space at Irondale, once a church, during the Saturday matinée of Heather Christian’s Terce as part of the Prototype Festival.
By Max Keller
Two months ago, when climate activists interrupted a performance of Tannhaüser at the Met, the banners they unfurled from the balconies announced, “no opera on a dead planet.”
The beginning of Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Adoration is marked by silence. The young Simon, played by Sammy Ivany, lies on his stomach, scribbling in a notebook.
By Max Keller
“The mystery of her voice gripped my soul,” Sharpless tells Pinkerton at the beginning of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. One could say the same thing of Aleksandra Kurzak’s remarkable portrayal of the title role, the main reason to catch the Met’s latest revival.
By Kevin Ng
Angel Island seemed a piece with two simultaneous goals: to musically interpret the poetry of Angel Island detainees and to educate its audience on the history of Asian and particularly Chinese immigration to America.
Nothing says “diva” like an insane recital program.
By Kevin Ng
Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Thomas Corneille’s Médée is a monument of the 17th century French baroque lyric tragedy.
This Carmen, in other words, was somewhat less radical than its initial image suggested.
The whole performance was reminiscent of long-forgotten ways of doing opera (ways which still find the full approval of an Italian public tired of proposals that are all too “experimental”)
A frigid air swept through the crypt of the Church of the Intercession on Friday, December 8, nearly blowing out the candles that cast a golden light on the bundled-up audience.
By Max Keller
A perfect escape for a city laden with recent layoffs and job cuts coming into Holiday season
Perhaps the greatest souvenir of her art there is.
By Patrick Mack
Washington Concert Opera’s season opened with a triumphant performance of Gioachino Rossini’s rarely heard Ermione Saturday night at George Washington University in D.C., led by Antony Walker and a stellar quartet of principals in Angela Meade, Lawrence Brownlee, David Portillo, and Ginger Costa-Jackson.
By Alex Baker
In any case, we probably got as good a Tannhäuser cast as could be assembled these days.
As far as I know, Juan Diego Flórez last appeared in New York City (not totally to his advantage) as Alfredo in the Met’s garish new production of La Traviata back in December 2018, nearly five years ago.
By Eli Jacobson
I can still vividly remember the first time the music of George Frideric Handel made an impression on me.
By Patrick Mack
Anna Bolena might be the earliest of Donizetti’s operas that might have name recognition to a non-specialist audience.
By David Fox
Although primarily known as a vanguard of the Downtown music scene, John Zorn’s artistic and intellectual ethos is at home at the decidedly Uptown institution of Columbia University.
By Emma Hoffman
Despite this being the first full-length opera for Gabriela Lena Frank, there’s no lack of experience across the creative team which, along with favorable reviews for the production, contributed to high levels of anticipation.
By Patrick Mack
It took more than 25 years for Harmony, the passion project of singer-songwriter Barry Manilow, to reach Broadway, where it opened recently at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Edward Hopper’s paintings from the 1930s and 1940s are simply lousy with windows.
I’ve never had a better time in an opera house.
By Henson Keys
In its Met premier, neither a talented cast nor some beautiful musical moments were enough to make Florencia feel new or vital.
