Joy comes in the morning
Yannick Nézet-Séguin opens Philadelphia’s symphonic season in typically sunny style with programs feautring Beethoven, Brahms, and Bernstein.
David Fox
The awkward stage
Opera Philadelphia’s production of Mitridate, re di Ponto proves more puerile than perhaps its 14 year-old composer intended.
‘Tis almost fairy time
Curtis Opera and a charming cast of young singers cast a spell with their beguiling production of Britten‘s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Now sleeps the crimson petal
Gregory Spears’s Sleepers Awake mystifies and delights at Opera Philadelphia.
Youth has no age
Led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Yoann Combémorel, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra proves themselves the equal of any major American orchestra in a program of Mahler, Wagner, and Dawson.
Here, there, and everywhere
David Fox and Dan Johnson report on Yannick Nézet-Seguin‘s recent performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Philadelphia and New York.
By David Fox and Dan Johnson
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The arc of life
The dazzling and deeply moving Complications in Sue bodes well for Anthony Roth Costanzo‘s stewardship of Opera Philadelphia.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Global warming meets the cool factor in The Seasons.
Form over function
A consideration of Anika Kildegaard’s extraordinary recital in Philadelphia—and the oddity of recitals themselves.
Museum quality
Opera Philadelphia’s Il viaggio a Reims in a nutshell: Hyperactive, confusing, and distracting from (and sometimes for) the singers? Yes. Imaginative, wildly entertaining, and musically rewarding? Absolutely.
Höchste Lust!
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stuart Skelton, and Nina Stemme in a Tristan und Isolde for the ages
Momentum mori
A fine Don Giovanni at Opera Philadelphia rounds out the company’s inaugural season under Anthony Roth Costanzo
Happiness indeed
The nail-biting adventures of Voltaire’s titular hero Candide are hardly more circuitous than those faced by Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway musical adaptation.
The baptism of Konstantin
Sitting in Park Avenue Armory last week for the American debut of baritone Konstantin Krimmel, the rush of joy I felt was two-fold.
Humming chorus
Two opera houses, both alike in dignity (but less so in resources and international fame) launched their seasons this week, making similar out-of-the-box choices: new works on edgy, contemporary themes.
Fox on fox
The Cunning Little Vixen, Leos Janacek’s late-career opera—a wonderous work with an almost miraculous sense of charm and poignance—has found significant success in conservatories.
If you could see it through my eyes
Each successive version pushed the envelope further… and was less effective.
No strings attached
Madama Butterfly is the opera of the moment.
Crying ‘Uncle’
Surely it was lightning in a bottle. The announcement that Steve Carell would appear at Lincoln Center’s Beaumont Theater playing the titular Uncle Vanya in Anton Chekhov’s classic play would, of course, be a box office windfall.
Sack of Rome
Finding Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia on the Academy of Vocal Arts calendar was both a pleasure and something of a surprise—the latter because the work is far from central repertoire, even in a conservatory.
For so our master said
Ah, that Bernstein dichotomy.
Giving head voice
Anna Bolena might be the earliest of Donizetti’s operas that might have name recognition to a non-specialist audience.
Unchanged for good
No show should last 20 years.
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).