Over the garden wall
Hannah Lash’s latest opera, which premiered at the Miller Theater on Wednesday night, was a musical and dramatic misfire.
Callum John Blackmore
Callum Blackmore is a writer and a researcher currently completing a PhD in historical musicology at Columbia University. Before moving to New York, Callum was awarded degrees from the University of Auckland and the University of Leeds, and has worked with opera companies in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. His research currently focuses on opera and politics in the wake of the French Revolution.
Sleeper
As the Netrebko-crowned Macbeth took to the stage at the Met, just a few blocks away, Teatro Grattacielo presented its 25th Anniversary Gala Concert.
When a man loves a woman
At the Met’s performance of Manon Tuesday evening, Michael Fabiano made as good a case as any for renaming the opera Chevalier des Grieux.
Defying gravitas
Benjamin Yarmolinsky’s The Constitution: A Secular Oratorio, performed by Vertical Player Repertory on Thursday evening, was an awful lot of legal speak for one evening.
Toys in the attic
One of the main problems with My Undying Love was that it did not appear to know what audience it was pitching to.
Pardon my dust
David Lang’s Prisoner of the State, which was premiered on Thursday night by the New York Philharmonic, places the issue of mass incarceration front and center, foregrounding the violence of the prison system, both physical and psychological.
First Lady sings the blues
Daniel Thomas Davis’ The Impossible She, was a towering musical achievement, a hugely complex work packing a whopping political and intellectual punch.
Orpheus condescending
Iestyn Davies is, of course, a renowned Handellian, and he sang Handel’s music with clarity, restraint, and precision.
The end is the beginning of the end
At the Metropolitan Opera’s Götterdämmerung on Saturday afternoon, the fires which consumed the Gods burned lukewarm.
Teenager in love
Stefan Vinke’s Siegfried was not so much brawny and terrestrial, but heady and mercurial
Gladiator tidings
The finals on Sunday seemed a bit like the modern-day operatic equivalent of the Roman colosseum.
Why so seria?
At the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, Mozart’s opera never sounded fresher, a superstar cast shining new light on one of the composer’s all-too-seldom-performed scores.
Everybody dance now
Austin McCormack‘s lascivious choreography outshone a tepid and tedious staging of Saint-Saëns’s old-testament epic.
Cryptic
Hearing Lucas Meachem perform Kindertotenlieder in the crypt of Harlem’s Church of the Intercession was a heart-warming, and ultimately uplifting experience.
Follow her lead
Barbara Hannigan‘s electrifying performance with the Juilliard Orchestra on Friday night proves that she is as much a force to be reckoned with on the podium as she is onstage.
Borderlines
While 4.48 Psychosis is an intricately-crafted, deeply moving portrait of human agony, Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance lacks the creative clout to realize its artistic ambitions.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
