David Fox
Academy of Vocal Arts’ Rusalka—surprisingly, only their second venture in many years into the Slavic repertoire—left a divided impression.
By David Fox
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Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s “Music of Faith” with the Philadelphia Orchestra was a sensational concert, perhaps the best I’ve heard in more than a season.
By David Fox
Russian repertoire figures very centrally in AVA’s mission.
By David Fox
Philadelphia is a city famous for its musical institutions—so, of course, at this time of year Messiah performances abound.
By David Fox
In the Academy of Vocal Arts’s (AVA) clever pairing of two Puccini works, there was every reason to expect the fix was in.
By David Fox
It’s high time we see Funny Girl through a different lens.
By David Fox
Although Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti is always categorized as an opera, the piece certainly has one foot planted firmly in his jazzy musical-theater style.
By David Fox
Opera Philadelphia’s O18 Festival continues through the weekend, but Friday represented a finale of sorts with the last two premieres.
By David Fox
Imagine you are at Disneyland, and there’s an Anthony Roth Costanzo ride.
By David Fox
Those who want a rethought Lucia to allow the heroine more sense of agency will be especially confounded at Laurent Pelly’s reading.
By David Fox
Soprano Patricia Racette is superb in La Voix Humaine, a work that she makes absolutely her own.
By David Fox
Soprano Ashley Marie Robillard and mezzo Siena Licht Miller evoke a journey to Paris, Venice, Berlin, and London.
By David Fox
It would be hard to imagine a more apt and poignant metaphor for the ambitious O18 Festival than the world premiere of Lembit Beecher and Hannah Moscovitch’s Sky on Swings.
By David Fox
Warmth, humor, and joyful out-and-proud-ness dominate the mood, yet there is considerable darkness in Taylor Mac’s view of both past and present.
By David Fox
A very particular tension—between angry political resistance and gloriously sex-positive, buoyantly confidant celebration of queerness—fuels the immense energy of Taylor Mac’s A 24-Hour Decade History of Popular Music.
By David Fox
Though orchestrally lavish, this “semi-staging” delivers less theater than no staging at all.
By David Fox
Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, a top-tier advanced training program for singers launching professional careers, always sends off their artists in style.
By David Fox
Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht’s Mahagonny Singspiel, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium—are not only combined, but configured to overlap in sometimes revealing, occasionally confounding ways.
By David Fox
How do you like your Carmen? Mezzo or soprano? Flirtatious? Confrontational? Smolderingly sexy?
By David Fox
