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.
It was a meaty program. But both singers had the chops for it.
Take it as a high compliment to the harrowing, riveting Soldier Songs that I was grateful it lasted only one hour. My nerves couldn’t have handled more.
Dancing sheep! Flying sheep! Flying sheep who dance!
Conceived by Adam Guettel as a song cycle that explores human relationships to the gods across the span of history into today, Myths and Hymns has been seen and heard in concert and staged settings, and some of the individual songs are often performed in cabaret.
The performance of an opera, indeed, seems almost a third narrative, atop the dreamer under the scientific microscope and the larva turning into a butterfly, and the mingling is not always clear—but then, clarity never seems to be the intention.
Like everyone reading this, I imagine, I’ve missed going to see and hear something in person more than I thought possible.
The immediate and personal catastrophe interleaves with the general and universal and ancient.
Without furnishings to distract them, the cast prowled the stage with sinister energy, exchanging significant looks and deadly secrets as though fearing Nihilists behind every drapery.
Despite the ongoing pandemic and the political upheaval, the Prototype Festival is back, and it is bigger and more accessible than ever before.
The Murder of Halit Yozgat by Ben Frost and Petter Ekmann is flavorsome in its use of sound, vocal and otherwise, to explore the elements of the story, to keep you tied in, and guessing.
As Julia Child, Jamie Barton is clearly having the time of her life.
Happy New Year, dear readers, from me, Callum, and Christine Goerke’s headband-tiara!
If the original version of The Prom had zazz—to borrow from one of the show’s signature numbers— Ryan Murphy’s adaptation barely achieves fizz.
Grab a fuzzy robe, a hot toddy, and a Wales guidebook, then sink blissfully into your couch for Bryn Terfel’s Christmas concert for the Met’s Live in Concert Series.
All in all, Mahler’s ethereal evocation of the natural world, and the world beyond our own, is becoming old hat.
Has anything positive happened to the performing arts since the plague engulfed us nearly ten months ago?
Kennedy Center could not have predicted just how aptly Saturday evening’s rescheduled recital of 2020 Marian Anderson Award winner, baritone Will Liverman, would respond to the moment.
I’ll just note that Cameron and I listened separately; we didn’t compare notes; and on our own, came up with the same list of top three singers… none of whom were among the actual winners.
“Once upon a time / Lived a foolish king. / Mocking Death, his crime, / Pure chaos he bring.”
Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja presented an uneven program in a lavish setting this weekend in the most recent entry in the Met’s concert series.
A particularly heartbreaking aspect of the pandemic shutdown has, of course, been helplessly watching rising artists have their careers plunged into indefinite silence. But for a few bold souls who are willing to try new things, the moment has also opened doors.
What a joy when a comic opera gets you cackling through the whole night, discovering new nuances and perspectives from an oft-seen work and delighted with wonderful singing!
Fueled by a fierce intelligence, deep earnestness, exceptional eloquence, and social media savvy, Joyce DiDonato is a presence and a power, as much when speaking and thinking as when singing. Who better to imagine a program that would suit this (we hope) unique moment?
It was hard for me not to get choked up, watching two of AVA’s most promising young graduates having to make this opportunity for themselves, and doing it with such palpable good humor.
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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