review / performance
The monsoon outside was no match for the torrents of gorgeous, dramatic singing and playing that was unleashed inside George Washington University’s Lisner Hall Sunday afternoon when Washington Concert Opera, in a glorious deluge of Léo Delibes, presented Lakmé to round out its return season.
By Harry Rose
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Before Wednesday I don’t remember gasping when I entered a concert venue.
We open in a war room that resembled nothing so much as a parking garage. Amneris’s boudoir was certainly recognizable as such but I’d be hard-pressed to pinpoint the location of the Triumphal Scene other than the inside of a large discothèque.
By Patrick Mack
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The Met brought back 2019 smash Akhnaten last night, with nearly the exact same cast and creative team, and with nearly the same knockout effect of three years ago.
It was Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto, with its disorientingly deconstructive approach to its source text, that gave Brett Dean’s Hamlet its identity.
It’s maybe not a surprise that Carmen is neither a good vocal nor temperamental fit for Isabel Leonard.
By Harry Rose
I wonder why many New Yorkers have been led to believe that the only Handel conductor in the world is Harry Bicket.
The Met’s revival of Turandot on Saturday night was surprisingly contentious.
“We came through the Depression by the skin of our teeth! One more tight squeeze like that and where will we be?”
By David Fox
Ms. Damrau unleashed a Blitzkrieg of charm upon her audience.
By Patrick Mack
Joyce DiDonato admits that she is “a problem solver, a dreamer, and—yes I’m a belligerent optimist.”
By Eli Jacobson
With no disrespect to Nadine Sierra, who as Lucia acquits herself honorably if not magically in vocal terms, the undisputed cause célèbre here is director Simon Stone.
By David Fox
