Patrick Clement James
Patrick Clement James is a writer and teacher based in New York City. His love of opera began in high school, leading to studies in vocal performance at the Manhattan School of Music. He currently studies English literature as a Ph.D. student at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and he teaches at Brooklyn College. As a writer, he is particularly interested in the ways that opera participates in the larger contexts of history and culture.
It was quite a pleasure—a privilege, really—to see John Dexter’s legendary production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
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Friday night’s Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera revealed once again a predictable dissonance between the performances on stage and Michael Mayer’s production.
One needs liberty in order to be a libertine.
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
The Metropolitan Opera delivers on the promise of Wagner’s Gesamtkunswerk in a revival of Robert Lepage’s Ring.
UrbanArias’ recording of Paul’s Case is an antidote to the intellectual pretensions that regularly drag contemporary opera performance toward tediousness and boredom.
Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle both use themes of vision and revelation to ask compelling questions about knowledge, responsibility, and gender.
Roberto Alagna’s physical and vocal embodiment of Don José lent his particular narrative a complication I hadn’t anticipated.
Diana Damrau‘s performance as Violetta was the work of a very ordinary artist, one susceptible to vocal flubs, poor intonation, and an all too banal approach operatic performance.
The proceedings took the virtue of longevity too much to heart; the night stretched on interminably.
Sondra Radvanovsky changed my opinion of her through a single performance—I’ll never think of her the same way again; the power of her singing overwhelmed my previous impressions.
With a program of Schumann, Wagner, Ravel and de Falla, mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and pianist Kevin Murphy delivered a underdone performance at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night.
It’s surprising to read that, as of this writing, La fanciulla del west has only had 105 performances at the Metropolitan Opera.
Anna Netrebko is the greatest performing artist singing opera today. Nobody else comes close; she makes me love her in a way that verges on the erotic.
Many lessons surface in Tony Kushner’s epic Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.
Plácido Domingo’s conducting reduced the score’s urgency to the lethargy of a jellyfish.
Carousel is receiving a Broadway revival in a simple, cautious production that still manages to pack an emotional wallop.
Why, only now, Cendrillon is having its premiere at the Met is a puzzling question.
It’s fortunate that the Met’s production of Luisa Miller featured the incomparable Piotr Beczala in the role of Rodolfo.
Lucia di Lammermoor, a bloody story of a young woman’s mental degeneracy amidst feuding families, remains Donizetti’s most popular exploration of the landscape and culture of Britain.
As Despina in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Così fan tutte, Kelli O’Hara injects much needed vitality into an otherwise lethargic evening.
I struggle to articulate the notion of an erotics of art.
La bohéme returned to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera once again last night (does it ever leave?)
Good singing and a dramatically potent (if conservative) production were an unbeatable combination in the Metropolitan Opera’s season premiere of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.
