review / performance
Following the great success of its new piece The Factotum, Lyric Opera of Chicago returned to the tried and true with the audience-pleaser Carmen in an equally tried and true 20-year old Lyric production that has stood the test of time.
By Henson Keys
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On Friday, MCal Performances—the performing arts organization based at University of California, Berkeley—presented the US premiere of South African multi-disciplinary artist William Kentridge’s Sybil, with music composed and conceived by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd.
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Angela Meade, reportedly flown in at the very last minute to take on the role of Norma, absolutely triumphed, pulling out all the stops to deliver a commanding performance that should, indeed, go down in history.
Originally scheduled for a D.C. premiere in spring 2020 but thwarted by the pandemic, Washington National Opera was finally able to present composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tazewell Thompson’s Blue at the Kennedy Center last Saturday.
By Alex Baker
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Lawrence Brownlee “Rising” at Carnegie Hall
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee, “one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR), performs an anticipated program of newly commissioned works with texts drawn from great Black authors and poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Thursday, March 23 at Carnegie Hall. (Photo: Zakiyah Caldwell Burroughs)
Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron showed herself unafraid to move the expectations of classical music forward, linguistically, thematically, and culturally.
There’s nothing unusual about casting a woman in Solomon‘s titular role.
By Max Keller
Verdi’s Falstaff is a brilliantly written opera: funny, with a complex ability to operate across minutely shifting registers of farce and lyricism. It needs, ideally, a production and cast capable of executing both comedy and drama, irony and sincerity—often concurrently. In its current Met revival, happily, Falstaff has everything it needs.
The program for Jasmine Rice LaBeija’s concert as part of Works & Process at the Guggenheim on Wednesday, March 8 read a bit like a curriculum vitae.
By Max Keller
This was a wonderful concert because MIchael Tilson Thomas approached every moment of it with an air of expansiveness and gratitude.
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.
By Harry Rose
Angel Blue‘s refulgent, lush soprano blooms as Violetta’s vocal lines broaden and soar.
By Eli Jacobson
Through a lucky coincidence of timing, I was able to catch up with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a play I adore, in two productions playing at the same time.
By David Fox
The Vienna Philharmonic brought along no star soloist for their three-night residency at Carnegie Hall this past weekend. Their programs didn’t include any commissions or flashy new works. The repertoire choices hewed closely to the core Austro-German corpus for which they are justly famous, including multiple works they had given in their world premieres.
Non-observant Jew that I am, my recent immersion into not one by two new plays—Pictures from Home on Broadway, and The Wanderers at the Roundabout—that very much live in that world was something of a double-whammy.
By David Fox
