Three ages of woman
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Satan keeps the beat
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.
Sweet birds of youth
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.
Sexual orientalization
An impressive cast blurs binaries as John Adams‘s ambitious Antony and Cleopatra arrives at the Met
Down for the Count
An uneven new cast can’t dim the glow of Richard Eyre‘s incisive Le nozze di Figaro at the Met
Strawberry blonde forever
The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble’s Das Lied von der Erde skirts the sublime at Carnegie Hall
Frick in the sheets
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
Now you Caesar, now you don’t
Before stopping at Carnegie Hall this weekend, The English Concert returned to the Bay Area last week with a fiery performance of Giulio Cesare
Little girls get bigger every day
Elza van den Heever and Peter Mattei (and the stage elevator) elevate an assertive, if not definitive, new Salome at the Met
Force of habit
Turmoil and injustice in the federal government; turmoil and grief in the Catholic Church: the time sure seems right for a staging of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
Ritorna vincitrice
Elina Garanca is back at the Met for the first time since 2020 — her Amneris is, in a word, sensational.
Momentum mori
A fine Don Giovanni at Opera Philadelphia rounds out the company’s inaugural season under Anthony Roth Costanzo
A masked ball
Opera San José (OSJ) concluded its eclectic 41st Season with another first, Héctor Armienta’s Zorro, which received its Northern California premiere at the California Theatre on Friday, April 19th.
Sex power god
Breaking the Waves and Tannhaüser at Houston Grand Opera are a can’t-miss doubleheader of sex and miracles.
Smash or pass
The long-awaited Broadway musical adaptation of the NBC series Smash is “not Bombshell – it’s just a bomb,” according to David Fox and Cameron Kelsall.
Bye bye, birdie
A feast of whimsy for the recently resurrected in Aaron Siegel’s new opera, Rainbird
Fractured féerie tales
Félix Fourdrain‘s “féerie” Les Contes de Perrault by the Frivolités Parisiennes is as fun for adults as it is for children
Brain Wurm
By the time the curtain rose on Verdi’s Luisa Miller last Sunday in Washington Concert Opera’s final show of the season, the originally announced line-up was about as accurate as a federal agency org chart from February.
C’est une vraie voix
Don Carlos returns to the Opéra National de Paris and it’s an unusually happy occasion
Humdrum existence
Missy Mazzoli has established herself as one of contemporary opera’s most skilled and subtle architects of emotional response, and her latest, The Listeners—now at the Lyric Opera of Chicago—is no exception.
Happiness indeed
The nail-biting adventures of Voltaire’s titular hero Candide are hardly more circuitous than those faced by Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway musical adaptation.
Like the poem said by a lady in red
Boop! The Musical arrives on Broadway with plenty of colorful glitz, glamour, and talent with an empowering message for women to find their inner confidence to succeed and lead
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).