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
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MILA comes to New York and San Francisco
Sung in English, Cantonese and Tagalog, Mila explores the cultural diversity of Hong Kong at New York’s Angel Orensanz Center (Dec. 7) and San Francisco’s Wilsey Center for Opera (Dec. 12). The hour-long opera is the creation of Eli Marshall, Candace Chong and Chu Hei Chan, with music director Neal Goren.
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
Uneven operas, like Verdi’s Ernani, which just recently finished its Scala run, more often work as theatre on the micro level than the macro.
By Harry Rose
This new production of the 1847 original version of Verdi’s first stab at Shakespeare features the extraordinary performances of Luca Salsi and Anna Pirozzi as the Thane of Cawdor and his merry wife.
By Harry Rose
Verdi’s Attila is hardly a rarity in Italy the way it is in the United States.
By Harry Rose
America’s longest-standing theatrical lightning rod, Robert Wilson premiered his ethereal, time-collapsing production of Le trouvère.
By Harry Rose
I was overjoyed by the coincidence that Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival would be presenting Façade.
By Harry Rose
The Barber of Seville turned out to be the most overall solid production of the year and even a bit of old-fashioned fun.
By Harry Rose
I mean, how often does one get to hear Bernstein’s gorgeous, rollicking, and varied score nursed by a full orchestra and the artistic resources of an opera company?
By Harry Rose
A regular day in 2018 Washington, D.C., or Verdi’s Don Carlo?
By Harry Rose
If opera as a genre in justified in its claim to one particular story, history confirms that the Orpheus myth would be that story.
By Harry Rose
Out of a literal perforation in the horizon of the Nebraskan prairie emerges Proving Up, the most convincing case I have ever seen for modern American opera.
By Harry Rose
Vincenzo Bellini’s La Straniera was presented at George Washington University’s dreary Lisner Hall on Sunday.
By Harry Rose
Could Barbara Hannigan be Joni Mitchell’s classical counterpart?
By Harry Rose
Washington National Opera’s lukewarm Alcina, unthreateningly misguided in both its musical and theatrical values, made little impact.
By Harry Rose
