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.
Is there any opera that can take more of a beating while still making an impact than Eugene Onegin?
“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.
In crafting his musicals, Sondheim’s focus, regardless of genre, tends towards the processive.
The singularity of Stephen Sondheim contributes to the conception of him as a camp figure.
Patrice Chéreau‘s Elektra brims with ideas beyond its eschewing of the opera’s standard, hysterical trappings.
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.
The whole performance reminded me of what Butterfly as I have never known it, but often herad about it, can be.
Logistically, a large-scale revival of the operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer is an unreasonable request, much less an expectation.
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.
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.
Verdi’s Attila is hardly a rarity in Italy the way it is in the United States.
America’s longest-standing theatrical lightning rod, Robert Wilson premiered his ethereal, time-collapsing production of Le trouvère.
I was overjoyed by the coincidence that Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival would be presenting Façade.
The Barber of Seville turned out to be the most overall solid production of the year and even a bit of old-fashioned fun.
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?
A regular day in 2018 Washington, D.C., or Verdi’s Don Carlo?
If opera as a genre in justified in its claim to one particular story, history confirms that the Orpheus myth would be that story.
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.
Vincenzo Bellini’s La Straniera was presented at George Washington University’s dreary Lisner Hall on Sunday.
Could Barbara Hannigan be Joni Mitchell’s classical counterpart?
Washington National Opera’s lukewarm Alcina, unthreateningly misguided in both its musical and theatrical values, made little impact.
How on Earth will these fictitious luminaries of turn-of-the-century Swedish society keep their clothes clean?
Aida certainly has its longueurs.
On Thursday evening, the Teatro alla Scala audience didn’t watch the familiar presentation of a “wayward woman” who overcomes moral inferiority only to be robbed of happiness when she finally deserved it.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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