Reviews
Confused dramaturgy dampens an otherwise sparkling night of singing in Opera Baltimore’s Lucrezia Borgia.
American Bach brings out the operatic side of Bach in a program featuring sparkling vocal talents.
Mascagni‘s Zanetto, a slight, Renaissance scene, gets a new recording from the Berlin Opera Group.
Despite some fine performances, Così fan tutte at the Livermore Valley Opera doesn’t quite click into place.
Akhnaten has lost none of its power or glitz at the Los Angeles Opera.
Strong performances at Opera Naples can’t overcome the cringey nostalgia of Derrick Wang‘s Scalia/Ginsburg.
Will Liverman and Kiera Duffy brought an eclectic program to their jovial post-blizzard recital at Rhode Island College.
A uniformly strong cast triumphs over a dull production of Don Carlo at the Dallas Opera.
Baritone John Brancy smoothly traverses the American songbook at Carnegie Hall.
Samantha Hankey’s Composer is the standout in the Wiener Staatsoper’s episodically sublime Ariadne auf Naxos revival.
Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Grammy-winning Intelligence makes a largely successful East Coast debut at Virginia Opera.
The Ralph Fiennes production of Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera is just…fine.
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under conductor Stéphane Denève plays up the schtick in a concert performance of The Magic Flute – and obscures Mozart’s magic in the process.
Joyce DiDonato makes the most of Kevin Puts‘s trite new Emily Dickinson monodrama.
That Trump opera at the Staatsoper Hamburg is lazy activism at its finest, we fear.
An excellent Věc Makropulos at Opéra de Lille makes the case for the vitality and necessity of France’s regional companies.
San Diego Opera presents a strongly directed and cast revival of Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Caitlin Vincent‘s new book Opera Wars paints a persuasive picture of the problems facing opera today, though her solutions leave something to be desired.
In Modena, Teodor Currentzis‘s Ring ohne Worte foregoes words but not gimmickry.
Marina Rebeka comes tantalizingly close to triumph in Cherubini’s Médée at Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
Under the baton of Nicholas McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale proves they have a magic touch in a program of Rameau and Handel.
Austin Opera’s moving production of Fiddler on the Roof grounds itself in lived tradition, to great effect.
Davóne Tines leads a thought-provoking program in San Francisco reconsidering patriotism, dissent, and spirituality as the United States faces down its quarter millennium crisis.
La Monnaie’s flamboyantly busy new production of Benvenuto Cellini reads more burlesque than Berlioz.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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