Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
The show, with its high production values and ever so abstract and high-minded Vedic metaphor, presents a nominally innovative performance that points at the avant garde but never quite ventures into challenging territory.
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Two opera houses, both alike in dignity (but less so in resources and international fame) launched their seasons this week, making similar out-of-the-box choices: new works on edgy, contemporary themes.
Lyric Opera of Chicago has opened its new season with a revival of its tried and true 2006 production of Verdi’s sixteenth opera, Rigoletto, one of his most tuneful and dramatic works (I attended the Sunday matinée performance).
Les Contes d’Hoffmann is something of a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and others been altered to fit since Offenbach died before he could complete and revise the work.
My vision may have been slightly blurry at the end.
One moral is that Eugene O’Neill may just not be opera fodder.
Boston Lyric Opera’s shows, of late, are often going to war with their texts.
They used to say of the island of Crete that it produces more history than can be consumed locally.
“[W]omen are interesting and important in real life. They are not an afterthought of nature, they are not secondary players in human destiny, and every society has always known that.” — Margaret Atwood, February 2017
It takes a lot to stop a show with a few minutes of music—and that is exactly what Leah Hawkins did during the 2019 run of Porgy and Bess at The Metropolitan Opera.
It was an unexpected tone for the cold stone and moody ambiance of the catacombs—an odd juxtaposition that I’m not sure really worked.
It was as though they had released us from an enchantment and we all woke up giggling and surprisingly well rested.
Overall, this was a superb achievement and a thrilling season opener for the San Francisco Opera.
But pressing questions remains: Why? Who is this Figaro for?
Unlike more surface-level historically informed practice which has become the norm in early music ensembles, this project stands out in its surprisingly deep engagements with the ethical and practical challenges posed by “recreating” Wagner’s sound.
Two experimental new works from thingNY explore decadence, quarantine, digestion, and lineage at The Exponential Festival.
Only by knowing what went on around the great composers is it possible to truly understand why they are great and why their operas have come down to us (and why dozens of other titles have been left behind).
When the subject of New York City Opera comes up, you always hear the same query: “What happened to City Opera? Are they even performing these days??”
Dmitri Tcherniakov’s interpretation of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Höllander presents an engrossing character study about Senta and the Dutchman’s struggles against their insular community’s stifling conformism.
Love makes fools of us all – that seems to be the theme of this summer’s Glimmerglass Festival.
You probably won’t leave Idomeneo ready to burst out in song, but what the opera lacks in melodic immediacy it makes up for in sheer virtuosity.
Jay Scheib’s Augmented-Reality Parsifal is a cautionary reminder that technological innovation shouldn’t absolve directors from the exacting work of deriving intelligent and fascinating theater from the source material.
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Pick a little, talk a little
Following the successful launch of the new regular feature The Talk of the Town in January, the team at the box is inviting contributions for a new quarter of operatic potpourri.
