Clear, crackling, comprehensible
Davóne Tines has sung with Early Music groups and avant-garde ones, and he has a taste for projects that cross artistic boundaries, which suits an innate showmanship.
Reviews
Spark plug
Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen‘s star is surely on the rise.
Coups de theatre
This month, both the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique are mounting seminal works about unhinged anti-heroines who meet their downfall after falling head-over-heels for an unavailable, deeply unattainable man – Salome, in the case of the Opéra; and Armide, in the case of the Opéra-Comique.
Disorientation
Teatro Nuovo took a big risk in a bad way on Wednesday with its revival of Rossini’s Maometto II.
We’ll always have Paris (or maybe not)
The revival of Don Carlo(s) which opened on November 3 restored the translated Italian text and the cut 1882 four-act revision not seen at the Met since Rudolf Bing’s last season in 1972.
Last dance
If it is true that there are few respectable ways for people over 40 without small children to celebrate Halloween, a performance of Richard Strauss’ pioneering horror opera Elektra belongs on the short list.
He plays the violin
The pandemic had different effects on different people.
“The work by which I stand or fall”
Dame Ethel Smyth’s third opera, The Wreckers, opened at Houston Grand Opera on October 28 and runs through November 11.
On a par with tuberculosis
Come back, Big Clock! We need you more than ever!
Leaner, meaner and tighter
Why did Ted Sperling and MasterVoices choose to perform an old warhorse like Carmen which has been produced almost continuously over decades just up the street at Lincoln Center?
Dancing with the devil
In George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, the dancers are dancing even before the curtain goes up.
Mountains of his words
The audience greeted the opening night of Omar with more genuine enthusiasm than I have ever seen at Los Angeles Opera.
The prodigal
Philippe Jaroussky mentioned introducing his encores that he has not appeared in New York in 12 years.
A study in simplicity and profundity
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays” – Soren Kierkegaard
The clue whose meaning we avoid
We watch Peter Grimes being made into a deviant— a process that can take place through the mechanism of the law, but often happens outside of it through social processes.
Meticulously shaped, beautifully tinted
Stefan Vinke brings to Tristan an indefatigable heldentenor of sturdy, muscular brilliance and a physical intensity that allowed him to fearlessly traverse this complex character’s broad emotional compass.
They are the champions
This is likely the best Giargiari Bel Canto competition year in my experience, evidenced in several important ways.
Street scene
In his attempts to be clever, and to overstuff Leopoldstadt with a dictionary’s worth of marginalia, Tom Stoppard never lingers on a character or storyline long enough to develop it into something worth caring about.
It’s going to cost you
Cost of Living, the Pulitzer Prize–winning play by Martyna Majok now on Broadway, overflows with complexity. It begins with the title.
Laugh, laugh, I nearly died
Whoever thought Verdi’s Il trovatore needed an injection of humor to make it complete?
Approaching Valhalla
Gianandrea Noseda leads seasoned Wagnerians in Andreas Homoki’s stark production of Die Walküre for Zurich Opera.
Take the long way Rome
David McVicar’s 2017 production of Tosca returned to the Met on Tuesday night, with an able and watchable, if not transcendent cast.
Talking about a revolution
People turn up at a cancer hospital on the worst day of their lives. In I’m Revolting, a moving and often unsettling world premiere from Atlantic Theatre Company, playwright Gracie Gardner dissects the fears and motivations of patients and their caregivers with surgical precision.
If they could turn back time
Yuval Sharon at Boston Lyric Opera has brilliantly found an interpretative middle ground for La bohème by presenting the acts in reverse order.
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).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
