Sea no evil
A muted production challenges a talented cast in San Francisco Opera’s Idomeneo
Reviews
Charm city offensive
A starry concert Aïda in Baltimore proves unusually polished
The head on the cake plate
John Yohalem reports on Catapult Opera’s satiating San Giovanni Battista
Do you believe in life after opera?
Opera Director and Detroit Opera Artistic Director Yuval Sharon begins his recent book A New Philosophy of Opera by imagining a future – some forty to fifty years from now – in which opera ceases to exist as an art form.
Married to the mob
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
Those in glass houses
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées surpasses even Nigel Wilkinson‘s high ‘WTF threshhold’
You can go your own way
Eli Jacobson on a luscious evening of early Strauss with Guntram at Carnegie Hall
Not an asset to the abbey
Francesco Filidei’s new opera The Name of the Rose struggles to bridge the past and the present in Milan
The sweet escape?
A plodding La bohème in San Francisco never quite takes off
Georges has Georges
A double bill of rare Bizet works in Paris is not something any of us needs to do more than once
Höchste Lust!
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stuart Skelton, and Nina Stemme in a Tristan und Isolde for the ages
HMS Indomitable
For Niel Rishoi, a new CD of Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi by Eleonora Burrato for Pentatone can’t help but invite unflattering comparisons
Venetian blinding
West Bay Opera’s Otello punches well above its weight
Summertime lovin’
An impressively well-rounded revival of Francesca Zambello‘s production of Porgy and Bess concludes the Washington National Opera season
Many happy returns
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
Virginia is for lovers
An innovative score and fluid production by Denyce Graves-Montgomery are highlights of Virginia Opera’s production of Loving v. Virginia
Reconcilable differences
Cameron Kelsall reports on a transcendent Jenufa from the Cleveland Orchestra
The revolution will be digitized
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at the Kennedy Center: not a poorly made opera, but so relentlessly mid.
Three ages of woman
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Satan keeps the beat
With tight, jazzy orchestrations, a queer-coded Mephistopheles, and sassy modern recitative, Heartbeat Opera’s fast 100-minute Faust delivers Gounod in miniature, minus some of the schmaltz.
Sweet birds of youth
Buoyed by a cast of emerging stars, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia asserted a key trait of this ubiquitous buffo: it is a young person’s opera.
Sexual orientalization
An impressive cast blurs binaries as John Adams‘s ambitious Antony and Cleopatra arrives at the Met
Concerto barocco
Christopher Corwin on three stylish sopranos delighting audiences live in New York and on recording in a trio of new releases.
Down for the Count
An uneven new cast can’t dim the glow of Richard Eyre‘s incisive Le nozze di Figaro at the Met
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).