Maid love
The Berta (mezzo-soprano Emily Damasco) runs away with the show.
Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Revelation
Beg. Borrow. Steal. Bargain. Cajole. Seduce. Threaten. Extort.
Grimm and proper
Bring your family: This show is special! Such perfect opera is hard to find!
Darkness on the edge of town
Lyric Opera of Chicago’as Don Giovanni lands smack dab in the middle of our current debate about wanted or unwanted sexual advances and outright sexual abuse.
One night only
Christine Goerke‘s distracted, tentative Isolde turned out to be the least potent feature of what was an otherwise exciting and effective second act of Tristan.
Reform follows function
Love in Hate Nation is a little musical that could and can… and I sure as hell hope it does!
Let your love flow
Saturday afternoon’s performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Met was awash with contradictions.
Is that how they do it?
Così fan tutte presents a considerable challenge to the modern director.
Strangers when we meet
The San Francisco Opera, perhaps incidentally, continued their exploration of operas based on literary works by mounting the revival of Giacomo Puccini’s first success, Manon Lescaut.
The opposite of sex
Since 1934, Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts has been preparing emerging artists for operatic careers.
Los Aztecas Galantes
What is opera for if not to commemorate a national epic tragedy and triumph?
“Haven’t we all suffered enough?”
Sunday’s matinee at Lyric Opera of Chicago was my first experience of Heggie and McNally’s 2000 opera Dead Man Walking. It certainly won’t be my last.
A place in the sun
Friday evening’s Met premiere of Akhnaten was a resounding triumph and an outstanding testament to Philip Glass’s enduring operatic vision.
General, not specific
While Russell Thomas admirably goes toe to toe with Otello (and Otello) in a thoughtful and self-aware way, the assumption feels like a work in progress if not an outright mismatch with his vocal gifts.
More things sacred
In recent weeks local and visiting groups performed refreshing rarities by Zelenka, Domenico Scarlatti and Telemann so engagingly that one didn’t miss the old standbys at all.
Bloody Mary, Hold the Pepper
Come ye addicts of melody! After long eclipse, Bel Canto shines again!
Close encounters
Zauberland: An Encounter with Schumann’s Dichterliebe touched on themes of forced migration, loss, exile, and dehumanization.
The Coronation of Lisette
Sunday’s Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall was unusually satisfying despite a less than usually superstarry line-up.
Nearly there
On Site Opera’s Turn of the Screw, an immersive production set in the Bronx’s Wave Hill Gardens, featured mostly good singing and a few directorial and technological missteps.
We’ll always have Paris
At Friday night’s performance of La Bohème at the Met, the cast seemed to lean into (and gamble upon) the production’s enduring popularity.
Pink flamingos
Like any good gay theatergoers, we seek out Tennessee Williams revivals with the fervor of truffle-sniffing pigs.
The lion king
Opéra Royal revives Grétry’s Richard Cœur-de-lion, one of the finest examples of the opéra comique genre.
I believe in unicorns
Sunday evening Los Angeles Opera presented tenor Javier Camarena in recital to a wildly enthusiastic audience from the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Take care of this house
How does one make a performance of standard opera repertoire like Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro feel “fresh?”
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).