David Fox
David Devan may be leaving the company, but there can be no better living tribute to him than this extraordinary work, which in 90 minutes gives us everything we could want from a new opera
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.
Okay, let’s get the silly jokes out of the way first. Around our house, we’ve been referring to this alternately as Merrily We Bohemians Roll Along, or Emèhob Al.
At all of these vocal contests, including this one, I find myself fascinated and perplexed by the same question: What exactly are the judges looking for?
What do you see when you look at Into the Woods? Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine‘s musical might serve as a kind of theatrical Rorschach test.
The current Met revival of Der Rosenkavalier, while not perfect, has much to feel joyful and excited about.
In terms of wild applause, it was Donna Murphy as Aurelia who was front and center, exciting the audience to a fervor with each re-emergence on the stage.
Through a lucky coincidence of timing, I was able to catch up with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a play I adore, in two productions playing at the same time.
Non-observant Jew that I am, my recent immersion into not one by two new plays—Pictures from Home on Broadway, and The Wanderers at the Roundabout—that very much live in that world was something of a double-whammy.
Updating opera settings is, of course, expected; I’d wager in most houses more often than not it’s now the norm. Still, few in my experience have the specificity and local immediacy of Don Pasquale at the Academy of Vocal Arts.
Soprano Lydia Grindatto confirmed the fine impression she had made at Giargiari vocal competition with a charismatic, thoroughly inhabited performance that showed careful preparation in every aspect.
This is likely the best Giargiari Bel Canto competition year in my experience, evidenced in several important ways.
Rodrigo is a ball-breaking role, but Lawrence Brownlee makes the demands sound easy—tossing in additional high notes and audaciously decorating cabalettas as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Festival O is back, and the sense of joy and expectation was palpable among the audience and Opera Philadelphia staff, who chatted together as we awaited the start of The Raven.
Philadelphia’s memorably if quirkily named Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium deserves to be better known.
No uneasy stock market or rickety roller coaster has generated more stomach-churning highs and lows than the musical Dear Evan Hansen.
It is perhaps a misperception to suggest that Die Schweigsame Frau is stronger in the uncut version.
An elegantly streamlined production of Into the Woods now on stage at Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre makes the best case for the show I’ve yet seen
Reunited and it feels so good!
“We came through the Depression by the skin of our teeth! One more tight squeeze like that and where will we be?”
With no disrespect to Nadine Sierra, who as Lucia acquits herself honorably if not magically in vocal terms, the undisputed cause célèbre here is director Simon Stone.
Dramaturgically, The Hours is a mixed bag: I wouldn’t discard it, but I would want to fix it. But simply as an evening of gorgeous music and singing, it’s cordon bleu.
Ana Maria Martinez is an artist of the first caliber, which was richly evident throughout this imaginative, substantial (nearly two hours!) program, which was (thank you!) offered without a music stand.
As we continue to watch the world of live performance come cautiously back to post-COVID levels, I felt the greatest surge of joy so far when I saw Opera Philadelphia’s announcement of their 2022-23 season—and most especially, the reboot of Festival O.
There was something very Russian—indeed, Chekhovian—about the mix of joy and tears, as the Academy of Vocal Arts performed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
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.
