Die Frist ist Glum
This Holländer offers neither a clear narrative vision for the work nor a sense of turbocharged drama; it simply sits on the Met’s cavernous stage as a dull gray mass.
Cameron Kelsall
A hole new world
Here’s an update for those keeping up with the Lohengrin casting sweepstakes at the Met.
The queens’ gambit
The sharp and glitzy national tour production of Six doesn’t suffer from a sense of staleness due to familiarity.
Citizen of the world
Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron showed herself unafraid to move the expectations of classical music forward, linguistically, thematically, and culturally.
Distinct and different
The Vienna Philharmonic brought along no star soloist for their three-night residency at Carnegie Hall this past weekend. Their programs didn’t include any commissions or flashy new works. The repertoire choices hewed closely to the core Austro-German corpus for which they are justly famous, including multiple works they had given in their world premieres.
Going ‘South’
Cotton, a world-premiere song cycle commissioned by Philadelphia’s Lyric Fest, takes its audience on a journey through Black American history that extends from the Deep South to the contemporary urban landscape.
Witch side are you on?
A main theme in Becky Nurse of Salem is how history is distorted by those who get to tell it.
All quirk and no play
Perhaps the quirkiest of Mahler’s nine symphonies, the Fourth fits nicely with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s somewhat idiosyncratic style.
So far away
As the focal point of the The Far Country, Eric Yang anchors the production with a cool steadiness that only occasionally betrays a sense of urgency beneath his patient countenance.
Love, loss and what she wore
Sondra Radvanovsky eschewed the customary stuffiness of the recital format, often speaking directly to the audience and putting her selections in a highly personal context.
Remember in November
Trouble was afoot from the first selection onward.
Spark plug
Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen‘s star is surely on the rise.
It’s going to cost you
Cost of Living, the Pulitzer Prize–winning play by Martyna Majok now on Broadway, overflows with complexity. It begins with the title.
Talking about a revolution
People turn up at a cancer hospital on the worst day of their lives. In I’m Revolting, a moving and often unsettling world premiere from Atlantic Theatre Company, playwright Gracie Gardner dissects the fears and motivations of patients and their caregivers with surgical precision.
Mouths to be kissed
The smile for the fools is especially broad this summer in the Berkshires, where a charming revival of A Little Night Music opened recently at Barrington Stage Company.
Summertime lies
A trip to Mediterranean climes came through musically, as the Boston Symphony Orchestra presented a largely satisfying concert performance of Don Giovanni on July 16.
Sweet and sour
People’s Light deserves commendation for resurfacing The Vinegar Tree, and there’s satisfaction in seeing a fine old play handled with care.
Joust in time
Zachary James builds on his early career experience as a musical theater performer to deliver a thoughtfully crafted, blessedly restrained Quixote/Cervantes.
Her kind of woman
Plucked from obscurity by Howard Hughes and sold to the public as a buxom, brunette heir apparent to his former protégé, Jean Harlow, Jane Russell became a household name before she ever shot a single reel of film.
We’ll always have Paris
If you missed Amour during its Broadway premiere 19 years ago, you’re not alone.
Halfway to heaven
All in all, Mahler’s ethereal evocation of the natural world, and the world beyond our own, is becoming old hat.
Something close to cultishness
Over the course of 700 pages, Alex Ross exhaustively—and sometimes exhaustingly—examines an impact that began in the Wagner’s own lifetime and continues unbroken today, with references cropping up in contemporary works as different as The Matrix and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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!
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).
