Reviews
Final opera of the season. Little-known opera. A revival. So, you can probably skip it, right?
She can’t put her foot on the gas the way she used to but there’s still plenty of fuel in that tank.
I’m old enough to remember when Yannick Nézet-Séguin could do no wrong.
On June 11th, the Met Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall with a diverse program led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
As an opera fanatic who was baptized by the blood of Leontyne Price, the Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi appeared on my radar fairly soon after I started delving into the operatic canon.
There were, of course, other Chénier recordings beyond the truly great ones…
“The distance between dreams and reality is called action.” – Brian Tracy
Witnessing William Christie guide his orchestra and singers was truly one of this performance’s greatest highlights.
Opera took center stage on the final weekend of the Philadelphia Orchestra season.
A work that skimps on profundity need not be devoid of entertainment value, and Madrid’s charismatic soloists and musicians more than capably deliver on this front.
Quite simply, the singers are not around today who are steeped in the tradition of verismo, or for that matter the later part of the 19th century.
The score for Innocence was menacing yet comforting, and, essentially, violent and peaceful at the same time
You can imagine my surprise at encountering an almost wholly traditional staging with one teensy difference.
Peter Sellars’s rarely radical climate epic Shall We Gather at The River brought together a superb collection of musical talent for an unfortunately incoherent night of sacred song.
Matthew Polenzani strode into the Park Avenue Armory’s Board of Officers Room last Monday evening and was received like a beloved friend–and indeed that is what he is to many of New York’s opera-goers.
“Sempre viva!”
Washington National Opera’s final production of the season, seen May 22, is also its high point: a new Turandot directed by Francesca Zambello, updated to the 20th century and featuring the world premiere of a completion of Puccini’s score by composer Christopher Tin and playwright and screenwriter Susan Soon He Stanton.
It has been a great season for prolific Bay Area composer Jake Heggie.
Opera has always been Orpheus-obsessed.
The melodrama was fabulous.
Like Emily discovering her gift in The Weight of Light, Vanguard fellows (ideally) come through a process of intense multivocality with a stronger sense of their own individual voice.
Erin Morley closed Vocal Arts DC’s season on May 13th with a recital in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, partnered by pianist Gerald Martin Moore.
In 1982 I saw Turandot at the San Francisco Opera, the year after I became an opera fan, and it was my first live opera.
To bring a well-known story to the stage, many methods are available.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
