That which we call a Rosa
Rosa Feola, hailed last year for her Gilda at the Met, brought a level of vocal refinement and elegance to Juliet that substantially elevated the night’s proceedings.
Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Mälkki way
When the New York Philharmonic announced Gustavo Dudamel as its next music director earlier this year, speculation arose immediately as to who would take his place out West when he leaves the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2026.
Keeper of the dumpster fire
To get right to the point, the performance did not come together despite some good elements and was a major missed opportunity.
Tuckered out
This Sunday marked a muted return of the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala, which had the dubious distinction of the fourth edition not to feature a prizewinner and perhaps the first not to provide complete orchestral and choral accompaniment for its performers.
Soar, losers
Chopping up the action and dutifully showing each plot point may work in a film but in an opera, where every piece of marginal dialogue must be set to music, it feels like a chore.
Rotten Eggs
In this vulgar world, there is no situation that can’t be limned with a power ballad.
Growers and showers
For Philadelphia opera lovers, October means the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition—a staple event for the Academy of Vocal Arts, and a pipeline for the public to discover some of their strongest resident artists.
Lombarding along
In Handel’s Rodelinda, a usurped monarch, believed dead, returns to avenge his deposition and reclaim the woman he loves.
You’re better off without me, mein Hair
I hate to say I nearly cringe at the thought of Gioachino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Cuck and ball torture
On October 20th, a wet but warmish Friday night, the Metropolitan Opera opened this season’s revival of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in David Alden’s 2012 production.
Unfit to print
You might wonder how this slimly plotted show, which had a brief Off-Broadway run in 2007 before fading into relative obscurity, ended up occupying a piece of prime Main Stem real estate nearly two decades later. To that end, I have four words: Josh Gad. Andrew Rannells.
Swan’s weh
All in all, this was truly a superb achievement for San Francisco Opera and an auspicious first chapter in the Wagner opera journey with Eun Sun Kim.
Georgia on my mind
Suddenly, here it was, and I wondered if it was a dream or an illusion.
Unicorn tapestry
The Hunt’s strongest argument for the possibility of growth, connection, and agency even under adverse and restrictive circumstances lay, of course, in its music, in which three individual voices were able to combine and transform into something infinitely rich and strange.
Dreamers with empty hands
It’s autumn in New York, baby.
Aging of aquarius
Wanna feel old? Hair, “The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical,” as it styled itself, has its 56th birthday this month.
They’re projecting
I love it, truly, just not that much.
Son can you play me a memory?
It’s a warning that could strike fear in even the heartiest theatergoer.
Turn and face the strange
How appropriate that the Met should present this supposedly “Jewish” opera after many in the audience had just spent twelve days immersed in the genuine article over the High Holy Days.
Ohne Ziel, ohne Rast
Instead of following the story, we in the audience spend most of the evening thinking “What?? Why is that happening?”
Tremens factus sum ego
One got a sense that the Met and the maestro directed most of the rehearsal and preparation toward the opening night premiere of the Heggie opus
Nun of a kind
“None of that sentimental crap, okay?”
Think different
Bay Area composer Mason Bates’s and librettist Mark Campbell’s contemporary opera about the life of the tech mogul Steve Jobs came home “to the place where it all began” in spectacular fashion
Some unholy war
Rather than focusing on a narrative, Unholy Wars explores a series of timeless yet current themes: war, destruction, alienation, and what it means to be perceived as outsider—particularly from the Middle East—in the context of a violent world.
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).