I’m never gonna dance again
A starry cast is hampered by Christof Loy‘s dour production of Rusalka in Barcelona
Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Sleepwalkers awake
La sonnambula at Teatro Nuovo overcomes uneven casting to highlight the many charms of Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece
Visible storage
Performances of Pittori fiamminghi and Madama Butterfly in picturesque Castell’Arquato were a fine way to honor Luigi Illica, the city’s native son
The bodies keep score
Music for New Bodies at Lincoln Center’s Running AMOC* Festival proves Matthew Aucoin really is everything he’s made out to be
Le nozze di Picasso
Wolf Trap Opera kicked off its summer season with an inventive production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro inspired by Pablo Picasso that showcased up-and-coming singers.
Canonically ossified
When such a canonically ossified work like Verdi’s Aïda is directed at all (let alone as ambitiously as Damiano Michieletto at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), it does feel like a completely different opera
There’s a parade in town
Les Brigands at the Paris Opera is an expensive joke that never lands
Now and at the hour of our death
This evening of Julius Eastman at Lincoln Center was so good it hurt
Changing habits
A new production of Dialogues des Carmélites featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci proves that it’s hard to be an iconoclast in Venice.
Sing out strong
Pride weekend events at San Francisco Opera and Festival Opera are fabulous starts to the Bay Area summer
Pride before the fall
Opera Parallèle’s Harvey Milk Reimagined offers a fragmented portrait lacking the depth or coherence needed to honor Milk’s legacy
The turning point
The Comet/Poppea at this summer’s Running AMOC* festival at Lincoln Center is a thrilling, startling, deeply moving experience
Turkish sound bath
A brilliant L’italiana in Algeri in Rome has Larry Wolff once again thinking about “singing Turks”
Up an Octavia
The operatic offerings of Boston Early Music Festival — Keiser‘s Octavia and Telemann‘s Pimpinone and Ino — are delectable discoveries
New world charm
The Met Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin surges into summer with a mixed program at Carnegie Hall
They call me the wanderer
Kent Nagano‘s and the Richard-Wagner-Akademie‘s historically informed Ring Cycle takes on Siegfried in Dresden
Drama therapy
Carmen in Brussels is dramatically vibrant, if vocally stretched
Sea no evil
A muted production challenges a talented cast in San Francisco Opera’s Idomeneo
Charm city offensive
A starry concert Aïda in Baltimore proves unusually polished
The head on the cake plate
John Yohalem reports on Catapult Opera’s satiating San Giovanni Battista
Married to the mob
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
Those in glass houses
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées surpasses even Nigel Wilkinson‘s high ‘WTF threshhold’
You can go your own way
Eli Jacobson on a luscious evening of early Strauss with Guntram at Carnegie Hall
Not an asset to the abbey
Francesco Filidei’s new opera The Name of the Rose struggles to bridge the past and the present in Milan
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).
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