Reviews
There is a moment about 75% of the way through the Rome Narrative where you can almost literally hear Tannhäuser’s stomach turn.
For anyone who thought that Downton Abbey, with its plot lines divided between the gentry and their faithful (or not-so) servants was somehow unique, that particular tale, and lo its many variations, has been told in one form or another since Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais put quill to paper in 1778 with La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro.
Director Richard Jones’ well-traveled and visually arresting production of Humperdinck’s 1893 opera Hansel and Gretel has returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago after a 10-year absence.
Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, and Moss Hart’s 1941 musical Lady in the Dark is a psychoanalytical romantic comedy. It simultaneously mocks and takes seriously the power of looking inward to understand oneself, a process which can be silly, frustrating and life-changing in turn.
For me, Fedora is the perfect opera
When I saw that Richard Bonynge AC CBE, conductor and musicologist supreme, had authored a book titled Chalet Monet about the home he shared with his wife, La Dame Joan Sutherland OM AC DBE, in Les Avants, Switzerland I practically had to wipe my chin.
What happens when you attend a performance and it doesn’t engage you?
Joyce DiDonato’s Eden immerses listeners within a centuries-spanning musical meditation that channels the majesty of our natural world.
Shortly before Tuesday’s performance of Salome at La Scala, I did something I rarely do: I took a mirror selfie.
It doesn’t get more classic than John Dexter‘s Dialogues des Carmélites.
On paper, the Met’s revival of L’elisir d’amore looked like a lovely evening. And at times it was—a few scenes hinted at what it could be and what it might yet become.
We constantly wonder whether the young man will embrace him—or slit his throat.
Du Yun is the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of Angel’s Bone. Her new opera, In Our Daughter’s Eyes, a one-act monodrama for bass-baritone and an orchestra of six, opened the current tenth Prototype Festival, in a performance at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, starring erstwhile Met regular Nathan Gunn.
Plink. A marble drops into a bowl. A brief yelp from glass, and a dozen, a hundred, a thousand years pass. Eventually the bowl is full of marbles, each one a tiny globe.
The first time I heard of Ermonela Jaho it was as the ultimate understudy. In the aughts it seemed that every time Angela Gheorghiu or Anna Netrebko or whoever canceled, Jaho was standing by.
Following new productions of Tosca in 2017, Adriana Lecouvreur in 2018, and the Anna Netrebko-led Puccini orgy of 2019, New Year’s Eve at the Met has come to signify that verismo, as this school tends to be known, is still kicking.
Do you ever wonder how easy it is to invent a Christmas tradition?
That Some Like It Hot—this season’s high budget and high-profile Broadway musical—fizzles rather than sizzles is not only a disappointment, but also a bit of surprise.
In a lovingly curated program of art songs, Ying Fang and the pianist Myra Huang presented pieces hailing from four different national traditions.
A main theme in Becky Nurse of Salem is how history is distorted by those who get to tell it.
Perhaps the quirkiest of Mahler’s nine symphonies, the Fourth fits nicely with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s somewhat idiosyncratic style.
A double bill (with a choral intermezzo) that just finished four nights’ run at the Manhattan School of Music is a delight, musically whimsical and reminiscent, wittily and colorfully staged.
Monday November 14th’s performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Freitag aus Licht by the contemporary music ensemble Le Balcon began in complete chaos.
For those who relish 17th and 18th century vocal music, the annual visits to the Morgan Library by the singers and instrumentalists of the Boston Early Music Festival invariably guarantee delight
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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