David Fox
The Princeton Festival has long been a “Little Engine that Could,” but the current operatic offering, John Adams’ Nixon in China, is a good deal more than that.
With the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Candide, they saved the best (of all possible worlds) for last.
Brigitte Fassbaender‘s sound is piquant and, I’d hazard to guess, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with her work.
For more than 40 years, the magnificent opening image from Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites has served as an icon for the Met.
Even the hit songs in this early Jule Styne musical would recede in a better show.
Two atmospheric but bleak works provide a musical illustration of the notion that misery loves company.
In the most hectic and sometimes marvelous year of theater I’ve had in memory, Lady in the Dark at MasterVoices this weekend thrilled me most.
It’s a wonderful idea to cast Bohème with young singers, and these delivered astonishingly assured, confident, mature performances.
The sexiest moment on Broadway this season features a 73-year-old man and a single button.
We owe director John Doyle and Classic Stage Company a debt of gratitude for bringing Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock—warts and all—to the stage.
Frankly, I can’t imagine there’s a future for I Married an Angel.
Kiss Me Kate is a sophisticated soufflé of a show: a comedy of manners, requiring effortless verve and elegance in the playing.
I’ve never liked the term “crossover.”
It’s difficult to reconcile what Schlather writes with what we see onstage, which is a jumble not only of pianos, but of periods and concepts.
Così fan tutte, Mozart’s final Italian comedy with Lorenzo Da Ponte, is this season’s heaviest lift for Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA).
The Day Before Spring , while not exactly experimental, shows a young and adventurous team thinking both traditionally and out-of-the-box.
It may have taken 28 years to see Robert Carsen’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the U. S., but it was worth waiting for.
Director Casey Hushion attempts to spice up Call Me Madam in ways that make it feel more than ever like an out-of-touch relic.
Academy of Vocal Arts’ Rusalka—surprisingly, only their second venture in many years into the Slavic repertoire—left a divided impression.
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.
Russian repertoire figures very centrally in AVA’s mission.
Philadelphia is a city famous for its musical institutions—so, of course, at this time of year Messiah performances abound.
Curtis Opera ventured Sweeney Todd.
In the Academy of Vocal Arts’s (AVA) clever pairing of two Puccini works, there was every reason to expect the fix was in.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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