Lipsync for your life
Heartbeat Opera’s Queeney Todd draws together New York’s queer theater multiverse in a stunning drag production that breathes new life into the opera and leaves the audience in stitches.
Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Near, far, wherever you are
Parma’s annual Festival Verdi traversed “distant worlds” of crusades, conquests, and colonial struggles, stopping first in Peru for the seldom-heard Alzira.
Voices of the past
Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’s Omar fascinates and frustrates in equal measure in Chicago.
Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?
Domingo Hindoyan makes an auspicious debut as LA Opera’s Music Director against a distractingly busy production of Carmen.
A little slice of death
Lincoln in the Bardo fills its inaugural Metropolitan Opera run with musical delights and vibes—but how far can those go?
The pleasure principle
Lisette Oropesa casts a spell as the titular sorceress in the Royal Ballet and Opera’s fizzy revival of Alcina.
Smooth operators
A husband-wife duo add star power to San Francisco Opera‘s stylish revival of Manon.
We’re not in Kansas anymore
Our critics assess Kansas’s own Ben Bliss in a (nearly) all-American program performed at the Park Avenue Armory and Vocal Arts DC.
By Richard Lynn and Andrew Lokay
18 comments
JK, just OK
The world’s leading tenor garners a tepid response at Carnegie Hall‘s season opener featuring the Berliner Philharmoniker.
A kink in the plan
In its third revival, Lyric Opera of Chicago‘s production of Don Giovanni nails its predatory Don — but falls short dramatically with its donne.
Say it ain’t so, Gio
Opera Baltimore strikes out with an uninspired production of Don Giovanni.
In my end is my beginning
In San Francisco, an autumnal Renée Fleming proves she can still work her magic with Strauss’s Four Last Songs.
Accept this offering
Austin Opera inaugurates its new permanent home with Ofrenda, an intimate tribute to the city’s Latine community.
E avanti a lei tremava tutta Stoccarda
Two up-and-coming sopranos — Chelsea Lehnea and Marigona Qerkezi — make a splash across two nights in Stuttgart.
Tell me something good
With ambition to spare, Boston Lyric Opera‘s William Tell shows that the state of American opera need not be depressing.
Cream of the crop
Our critic reports on the bumper crop of young singers at this year’s Giargiari Bel Canto Competition in Philadelphia.
Get to the ponto
Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Teatro di San Carlo showcases some energetic performances — and some unfortunate stage busyness.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots could learn to lighten up.
Wedding crashers
Louise Alder enchants in the comically-inclined revival of Claus Guth’s production of Semele at the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Man of the masses
Amartuvshin Enkhbat is superb in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in San Francisco — even if the drama offstage is more persuasive than this new production.
Urbane pastoral
Tenet Vocal Artists‘s first-ever opera production, of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, soars to Platonic ideals.
Così Island
The Metropolitan Opera gets its freak on — or about as close as it can — in a revival of its Coney Island-set production of Così fan tutte.
Joy comes in the morning
Yannick Nézet-Séguin opens Philadelphia’s symphonic season in typically sunny style with programs feautring Beethoven, Brahms, and Bernstein.
Bard from entry
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo by Haymarket Opera and The Newberry Consort takes its audience to heaven while its title character goes to hell.
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).