Harry Rose
Harry Rose, based in Washington, DC, is a recent graduate of Georgetown University. Starting out blogging independently as Opera Teen in 2013, he holds the auspicious distinction of being the youngest writer to ever contribute to parterre box (at age 14) and has had the pleasure and challenge of writing for the rigorously discerning cher public since 2012. Increasingly niche hobbies and interests include opera, ballet, literature in translation, Decadent-era verse drama, and gatekeeping Camp.
While the formulaic nature of some of Rossini’s other operas can undermine his ability to balance bravura singing and playing with legitimate drama, a concert Maometto II proves, with what it offers as much as what it lacks, that the formula still works.
By Harry Rose
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From an exposure standpoint, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the best thing to happen to opera since Beverly Sills.
By Harry Rose
Bay Street Theater deserves enormous credit for transforming Camelot from a clumsy historical epic into a breezy, human fairytale about leaders who cannot lead.
By Harry Rose
Concerts at Wolf Trap, mixed bags in more ways than one, provided fleeting glimpses of the old normal as moments of frisson mingled with more familiar monotony.
By Harry Rose
Pauline Viardot‘s Cendrillon hews closer to the Perrault original than either Rossini or Massenet’s more familiar retellings and is dainty in conception as a salon opera for her students.
By Harry Rose
For the weeks between the announcement that the return of Wolf Trap Opera would, in part, take the form of a concert performance of Sweeney Todd and its opening at the Filene Center on Friday evening, I racked my brain: why Sweeney now?
By Harry Rose
Proudly and vividly on display was Anna Netrebko’s unique and glamorous ability to wear the music like a parade of couture gowns—some more sparkly than others, some a more flattering fit, but all thoughtfully chosen and laced into with care.
By Harry Rose
Kennedy Center could not have predicted just how aptly Saturday evening’s rescheduled recital of 2020 Marian Anderson Award winner, baritone Will Liverman, would respond to the moment.
By Harry Rose
Renée Fleming presented a satisfyingly eclectic and quietly daring program of songs and arias, an interesting timestamp on a career that, despite its crepuscular vibe, seems as active as ever.
By Harry Rose
It’s Easter season, and that can mean only one thing for opera: It’s Cavalleria Rusticana time. And I, for one, couldn’t be more excited.
By Harry Rose
The ballet I have grown to love, admire, and ponder the most is Stravinsky’s first collaboration with George Balanchine, Apollo.
By Harry Rose
As long as women have been preyed upon, Don Giovanni has been relevant.
By Harry Rose
Over the past two decades, the understatedly beguiling Sasha Cooke has inched chronologically inwards in her subtle conquest of swathes of mezzo concert repertoire.
By Harry Rose
While Russell Thomas admirably goes toe to toe with Otello (and Otello) in a thoughtful and self-aware way, the assumption feels like a work in progress if not an outright mismatch with his vocal gifts.
By Harry Rose
Christian Gerhaher delivers a Kindertotenlieder of such conciliatory tact that it erases all others.
By Harry Rose
Tosca, as it exists now, can’t be real, spontaneous drama-it’s just Camp.
By Harry Rose
Is there any opera that can take more of a beating while still making an impact than Eugene Onegin?
By Harry Rose
“Non mi dispiace” seemed to be the general consensus in the loggione December 7 when Verdi’s Attila came roaring into La Scala to open the 2018-19 season.
By Harry Rose
In crafting his musicals, Sondheim’s focus, regardless of genre, tends towards the processive.
By Harry Rose
The singularity of Stephen Sondheim contributes to the conception of him as a camp figure.
By Harry Rose
Patrice Chéreau‘s Elektra brims with ideas beyond its eschewing of the opera’s standard, hysterical trappings.
By Harry Rose
Lohengrin descended upon the Wiener Staatsoper this month like American college students to Oktoberfest: loudly, spastically, not especially coherent, and in full lederhosen and dirndls.
By Harry Rose
The whole performance reminded me of what Butterfly as I have never known it, but often herad about it, can be.
By Harry Rose
Logistically, a large-scale revival of the operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer is an unreasonable request, much less an expectation.
By Harry Rose
