Joel Rozen is a culture critic, anthropologist, and audiophile living in New York. His doctoral thesis at Princeton—still underway—is based on some field research he did in North Africa a few years ago; since then he’s enjoyed teaching in the city and writing about music. His love of opera can probably be traced back to high school, when he used to poach from his girlfriend’s dad’s CD collection. The orientation has changed and so has the digital format. What hasn’t is the Domingo/Studer Otello, which remains awesome, and unreturned.
It’s been eight decades since darling Aix-en-Provence was under attack—its last formal invasion, at least by non-operagoers, was in 1942 during the German occupation of southern France. But on Friday, the town was besieged once again by its annual festival, with two dazzling premieres that examined the cruel and constructive dimensions of war and revolution.
The Aix festival organized two back-to-back evening concerts dedicated to the Russian masters. One was an embarrassment of Slavic riches, the other… well, just an embarrassment.
With unrest and looting nearby as France learned collectively that minority lives should matter, Marseille-adjacent Aix-en-Provence could be forgiven for the heavy-handedness of launching its 75th anniversary summer Festival with a new French translation of the ultimate carnival of social tension, The Threepenny Opera.
You’d want to expect that every Met retread would draw the same curiosity, the same large crowds, to Lincoln Center.
La Fille du Régiment, Donizetti’s half-spoken ode to La France about a girl raised by a division of daddies, is at once infamous and beloved for the string of nine high C’s capping act one.
Cellist Leah Coloff’s one-woman cabaret act ThisTree finds its place among a lineup of Prototype Festival miniatures this week that seem to plumb the depths of womanly distress.
At tonight’s performance of Aida at the Met, the Triumphal Scene horses suddenly panicked and tried to bolt from the stage. I can’t say I blame them.
In addition to Jessye Norman, this event paid homage to the shamefully obscure soprano Sissieretta Jones—once billed as “The Black Patti.”
Mark Morris’ saucy, psychedelic The Hard Nut has returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music yet again this week for its 27th Christmas since the ballet premiered in Brussels.
At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
It had something for everyone who loves loud chesty singing and smoky soft-singing: from Tchaikovsky to Rachmaninoff to Strauss…
This a sincere revival with a social conscience, a chance to take immersive part in the Christmas miracle, not just watch it remotely.
Only the Sound Remains introduced Americans to the latest collaboration between dazzling Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and hirsute metteur-en-scène Peter Sellars.
There are shows with iconic characters, and there are shows with iconic characters playing iconic characters.
Too bad, then, that this season’s tossed flower was a bit of a wilted one.
BAM brings us a political opera featuring… literal balancing acts.
The Met is on it with something something woker than woke: a noirish psychodrama of a frigid hysteric who seeks redemption via Freudian analysis!
With only a few weeks left to slice up our pumpkins and track down the perfect Luigi for our Mario, the timing seems right for a pair of Gothic operas set in a crypt.
Even for a medium that often trades in high-impact visuals, The Mile-Long Opera is dazzling to look at.
Carnegie Hall’s season opener last night fetched the usual glitterati.
On Tuesday we got one of the Met’s inveterate classics, which meant yet another opportunity to gaze upon the old accessories: Donkey cart! Teal shawl! Fugly plaid slacks!
Tanglewood may bring the classical music crowd to Lenox, but for opera, it’s all about neighboring Pittsfield, Mass.
Bard cultish Summerscape series continues to test our esoteric limits with Demon, Anton Rubinstein’s little-known opera about a demon who hankers for a Georgian princess.
Sunny, lakeside Cooperstown presents a peppy, exuberant, winning production of West Side Story, the musical.
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
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).
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