Next season I’m excited for La fanciulla del West
I’m looking forward to the Met’s new production of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West.
Montagu James
Montagu James is a PhD student at Brown University studying modern European political and cultural history. He also enjoys composing and conducting.
Avert your AIs
Bayreuth’s AI-powered “Ring 100010110” marred a first-rate cast and orchestra with nightmarish visuals and horrid dramaturgy.
Vox populi
In Bayreuth, a confident Magnus Vigilius and luminous Jennifer Holloway attempt to elevate Wagner’s populist Rienzi.
An instrument of your peace
Philippe Sly is sublime as Messiaen’s Saint François D’Assise in Salzburg, though Romeo Castellucci‘s production could brush up on its catechism.
Sealing the deal
The Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival wound down with Lotte de Beer’s darkly effective production of Gounod ’sFaust.
To the moon and back
Yuval Sharon‘s production of The Excursions of Mr. Brouček shoots for the moon — and lands somewhat limply on Lake Constance.
Antonio Pappano is a great opera conductor
Antonio Pappano‘s versatility in both German and Italian repertoire and beyond is both rare and impressive.
Beyond the valley of the gods
The Bayerische Staatsoper’s Ring cycle scores another triumph with Tobias Kratzer’s take on Die Walküre.
Queening out
Brett Dean‘s Of One Blood casts a well-trodden Tudor tale in a poignant, new light.
As a hero going to conquest
A joint Beethoven–Adams program conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk suggests a way forward for the embattled Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Heaven, here within my heart
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra explores love and death in an intense, intelligent program featuring soprano Corinne Winters.
The best thing I saw this year was Das Rheingold
Tobias Kratzer‘s production of Das Rheingold at the Bayerische Staatsoper was a resounding success.
“An opportunity to deliver”
Daniele Rustioni, who starts his tenure as Met Principal Guest Conductor with Don Giovanni this week, might just be the opera conductor we’ve all been waiting for — and he’s betting on a long haul.
Dona nobis pacem
A Missa Solemnis to celebrate 125 years of Boston’s Symphony Hall was sophisticated and subdued.
Gonna build a heaven from a little hell
Tobias Kratzer‘s Das Rheingold in Munich kicks off a Ring for the post-secular age
Walking through the valley of death
Peter Sellars‘s triple bill of Viennese modernism featuring Erwartung and a concert performance of The Raft of the Medusa stare down death at the Salzburg Festival
Old wife’s tale
Pénélope at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival spotlights the crossroads between the nostalgic and the progressive.
They call me the wanderer
Kent Nagano‘s and the Richard-Wagner-Akademie‘s historically informed Ring Cycle takes on Siegfried in Dresden
Married to the mob
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
Ode to Ode to Joy
Are Beethoven’s symphonies overplayed? Yes, but for a reason. While this justification may sound cliché, Beethoven’s humanist universalism is a sentiment that feels urgent in an era of widespread polarization and pessimism.
Conductors for the ages
In Munich, performances by 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt and 32-year-old Thomas Guggeis show the city’s orchestral ensembles at their best
All the light we cannot hear
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s program of works by Mozart and Kevin Puts, a composer championed by star Renée Fleming, was one of musical and artistic contrasts.
Hello to Berlin
Montagu James reviews the US tour of the Kirill Petrenko-led Berlin Philharmonic
The chimes of midnight
Aside from a tour with the LSO this spring, this was, I believe, the only time Antonio Pappano would be conducting in the US this season. This made the concert at Symphony Hall a real treat.
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).