Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Carmen in Brussels is dramatically vibrant, if vocally stretched
A muted production challenges a talented cast in San Francisco Opera’s Idomeneo
A starry concert Aïda in Baltimore proves unusually polished
John Yohalem reports on Catapult Opera’s satiating San Giovanni Battista
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées surpasses even Nigel Wilkinson‘s high ‘WTF threshhold’
Eli Jacobson on a luscious evening of early Strauss with Guntram at Carnegie Hall
Francesco Filidei’s new opera The Name of the Rose struggles to bridge the past and the present in Milan
A plodding La bohème in San Francisco never quite takes off
A double bill of rare Bizet works in Paris is not something any of us needs to do more than once
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stuart Skelton, and Nina Stemme in a Tristan und Isolde for the ages
West Bay Opera’s Otello punches well above its weight
An impressively well-rounded revival of Francesca Zambello‘s production of Porgy and Bess concludes the Washington National Opera season
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
An innovative score and fluid production by Denyce Graves-Montgomery are highlights of Virginia Opera’s production of Loving v. Virginia
Cameron Kelsall reports on a transcendent Jenufa from the Cleveland Orchestra
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at the Kennedy Center: not a poorly made opera, but so relentlessly mid.
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
With tight, jazzy orchestrations, a queer-coded Mephistopheles, and sassy modern recitative, Heartbeat Opera’s fast 100-minute Faust delivers Gounod in miniature, minus some of the schmaltz.
Buoyed by a cast of emerging stars, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia asserted a key trait of this ubiquitous buffo: it is a young person’s opera.
An impressive cast blurs binaries as John Adams‘s ambitious Antony and Cleopatra arrives at the Met
An uneven new cast can’t dim the glow of Richard Eyre‘s incisive Le nozze di Figaro at the Met
The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble’s Das Lied von der Erde skirts the sublime at Carnegie Hall
The Jupiter Ensemble with Lea Desandre and Anthony Roth Costanzo offers sleek and sexy HIP inaugurates the Frick Collection’s new Stephen A. Schwartzman Auditorium
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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