Bordering on offensive
Does Diane Paulus really have no better ideas?
Harry Rose
Harry Rose, based in Providence, Rhode Island, is currently pursuing a PhD in Italian Studies at Brown 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, theatrical goings-on of the fin-de-siècle, and gatekeeping Camp.
If you’re going through hell
The rule that governs Dante’s Inferno is called the “contrapasso” – that every sinner is given a punishment in poetic proportion to their crime.
Christmas in July
Not too long ago, Benjamin Bernheim gave an interview to Opéra Magazine in which he stated “Je ne suis pas un top model.”
Hiding in plain sight
An air of discovery pervaded the first New York presentation of La ville morte much the way that it pervades the opera’s plot itself.
The voice of spring
“I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o’er the mountains, with light and song”
Dancing at the edge of the world
Puccini’s schmaltziest, most melodic, most dramatically limp, most cynical, most obscure mature work
The artist is present
And is this ‘Orpheus’ in the room with us right now?
Opening doors
Real estate is hot along the Acela corridor right now: as proof, Judith will have toured at least three castles in New York and Boston between this spring and last.
That with music loud and long
The flashing eyes, the floating hair, and the inexplicable barefootnedness during the second half of Saturday night’s performance confirmed one thing: Kristine Opolais is back.
Let the children come to me
It says something about Boston’s opera scene that one of the most consistently ambitious events of the opera season is a one-off performance played by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Singin’ through the sunshine
Julia Bullock seems to fission herself multiple times over during the course of her newest, widely ranging recital program.
The music seemed to come from afar
New York shall never be in need of another Messiah to assist to during the holiday season, but a new tradition is beginning to crystallize at the cavernous St. John the Divine to rival it.
Ashes to ashes
Gioachino Rossini’s adorable adaptation of Cinderella famously dispenses with a slipper in favor of a bracelet to lead the Principe Ramiro back to his Cenerentola. If only this performance had benefitted from such a glittering guiding hand.
Float like a butterfly
Phil Chan described his point of departure for reimagining Orientalist works as the question, “what else could this be?”
It has to be more than that
Before rehearsals for Madama Butterfly started, Phil Chan sat down with the box to chat about his production, opera’s cultural appropriation problem, and why the last thing he’s trying to do is cancel Puccini.
Prosperity gospel in tango shoes
If sex sells, then the 40 years of success for Evita show that the strawman construction and vicious takedown of an unsexy, supremely unlikable woman in just under two-and-a-half hours is just as viable a quantity.
Open concept
In Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, which closed on Sunday after a nearly sold-out run—there are no doors.
It might as well be Einspring
I can’t imagine anything more anxiety-inducing than being put in at last-minute to sing a role in a high-profile production at the Met.
Wide-eyed mania
There is a moment about 75% of the way through the Rome Narrative where you can almost literally hear Tannhäuser’s stomach turn.
Between two mirrors
Shortly before Tuesday’s performance of Salome at La Scala, I did something I rarely do: I took a mirror selfie.
Poison of interest
Following new productions of Tosca in 2017, Adriana Lecouvreur in 2018, and the Anna Netrebko-led Puccini orgy of 2019, New Year’s Eve at the Met has come to signify that verismo, as this school tends to be known, is still kicking.
Everything old is new again
All things were, indeed, made new again, when Boston’s venerable Handel & Haydn Society brought Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro to the stage, their first time doing so in its entirety, as their 2,576th concert on Thursday.
Dancing with the devil
In George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, the dancers are dancing even before the curtain goes up.
If they could turn back time
Yuval Sharon at Boston Lyric Opera has brilliantly found an interpretative middle ground for La bohème by presenting the acts in reverse order.
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).
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!
