review / performance
Opera is back, baby, and it’s good to be home!
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The great Dalai Lama once said, “whenever there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity to face it, to demonstrate and develop our will and determination.”
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“Spring has sprung,” announces MasterVoices’ director Ted Sperling with a smile at the beginning of Part III. And indeed, even the doomsayers among us (and I count myself one) can’t help but feel signs of cautious optimism, as the world we knew slowly but noticeably begins to re-emerge.
By David Fox
Jonathan Dove’s Flight, which premiered at Glyndebourne in 1998 and is now being streamed by the Seattle Opera, is structured like one of those baroque extravaganzas where some half dozen characters find themselves (in every sense) on a magical island, its properties little understood.
By John Yohalem
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If you missed Amour during its Broadway premiere 19 years ago, you’re not alone.
Starting March 19, Vocal Arts DC’s latest virtual concert lavishes listeners with a sumptuous recital of art songs from the Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen.
HERE’s new radio opera marks itself out by leaning into the dramatic affordances of the audio-only format in No One is Forgotten, an adaptation of a play by Winter Miller with new music by Paola Prestini and Sxip Shirey.
Now, through the auspices of the Metropolitan Opera, we have Sonya Yoncheva—and if anything, the diva-dom has been kicked up a notch!
Whatever you think of Angela Gheorghiu, she epitomizes a star sound, the kind of voice that’s recognizable within three seconds, and she definitely knows her way around a performance.
Proudly and vividly on display was Anna Netrebko’s unique and glamorous ability to wear the music like a parade of couture gowns—some more sparkly than others, some a more flattering fit, but all thoughtfully chosen and laced into with care.
By Harry Rose
It was a meaty program. But both singers had the chops for it.
Take it as a high compliment to the harrowing, riveting Soldier Songs that I was grateful it lasted only one hour. My nerves couldn’t have handled more.
By David Fox
Dancing sheep! Flying sheep! Flying sheep who dance!
By John Yohalem
Conceived by Adam Guettel as a song cycle that explores human relationships to the gods across the span of history into today, Myths and Hymns has been seen and heard in concert and staged settings, and some of the individual songs are often performed in cabaret.
By David Fox
