In the year and half that New York City Opera has been absent from the musical milieu of our metropolis, Tony Tommasini has been sadly deprived of one of his favorite topics of conversation.
No, cher public, you’re wrong, because I’m not talking about barihunks; NYCO hasn’t a monopoly on those, and the Times scribe in fact has of late moderate his wonted zeal for the strapping earthy darlings of the lyric stage. No, no: it’s something else.
For the longest time, Tony’s tip-top topic, amounting almost to an obsession one might say, was the subject of the sound enhancement system installed in the New York State Theater a decade ago.
Over the past ten years, TT has returned to his subject, uh, occasionally.
If La Cieca were feeling less charitable, she might call the Tommasini v. Microphone feud an idée fixe, but La Cieca is feeling charitable, so she’ll just say, well, at last Tony has got his wish.
Though, as TT himself notes, an acoustic theater does not necessarily mean a voice-friendly theater; so we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
