David Fox
Tales of the unexpected
In the Academy of Vocal Arts’s (AVA) clever pairing of two Puccini works, there was every reason to expect the fix was in.
Hello again, Gorgeous!
It’s high time we see Funny Girl through a different lens.
Trouble in paradise
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.
Glamour, reconceptualized
Opera Philadelphia’s O18 Festival continues through the weekend, but Friday represented a finale of sorts with the last two premieres.
Dramatic A.R.C.
Imagine you are at Disneyland, and there’s an Anthony Roth Costanzo ride.
Dark shadows
Those who want a rethought Lucia to allow the heroine more sense of agency will be especially confounded at Laurent Pelly’s reading.
Elle is other people
Soprano Patricia Racette is superb in La Voix Humaine, a work that she makes absolutely her own.
Grand tourists
Soprano Ashley Marie Robillard and mezzo Siena Licht Miller evoke a journey to Paris, Venice, Berlin, and London.
Touch the sky
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.
The sun shines nellie
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.
Mac and me
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.
“Tosca,” starring the Philadelphia Orchestra
Though orchestrally lavish, this “semi-staging” delivers less theater than no staging at all.
Bigger than usual
Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, a top-tier advanced training program for singers launching professional careers, always sends off their artists in style.
Medium, cool
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.
Thank you for smoking
How do you like your Carmen? Mezzo or soprano? Flirtatious? Confrontational? Smolderingly sexy?
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).