Body and soul
Ultimately, the unrelenting grimness of the subject matter allied to the sameness of the vocal writing made for a wearying evening.
Recent Stories
The ancient mourner
Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero is a dance-music-theater piece that Prototype Festival presented at the Joyce Theater through Saturday night.
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).
Bitter end
Trove Thursday offers a rare third retelling of the saga of the ill-fated courtesan: Auber’s Manon Lescaut starring Mariella Devia.
Rice and shine
Happy 86th birthday mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne.
Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy and Gabrielle
I watched Greta Gerwig’s heartbreaking, gorgeous, joy-filled explosion of an adaptation of Little Women in about the best way one can, sniffling in the dark with my best friend, the closest person I have to a sister.
A radical participatory platform
The opera’s radical vision lay in its enormous scale, which encompassed a hundred-strong community chorus taken from the ranks of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Master Voices.
Seductively compelling
Rosa Feola immediately established with her first group that she’s a serious artist who brought to the concert format both a warmly appealing coppery soprano as well as detailed and savvy dramatic instincts.
Refraction
I’m only now coming up for air after a night spent wading in the deep, cool, refractory waters of Magdalene, a work of immense, mythic joy and pain wrapped in the details of the ordinary.
Litter box office poison
Upon its commercial release three weeks ago, Tom Hooper’s film adaptation of Cats garnered instant, near-universal scorn from audiences and critics alike.
Flawless!
At the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night, an otherwise undistinguished Traviata was salvaged by an astonishing performance from Aleksandra Kurzak, whose Violetta was an incontrovertible triumph.
The moon and I
Composer Garrett Fisher and librettist Ellen McLaughlin’s Blood Moon wears its themes on its sleeve to great success in this spellbinding new opera.
The man that got away
On this day in 1912 Pietro Mascagni‘s Lodoletta had its United States premiere at the Metropolitan with Geraldine Farrar and Enrico Caruso in the leads.
These are the damned
Anticipating the work’s return to the Met after more than a decade, Trove Thursday presents La Damnation de Faust in a 1959 broadcast featuring Régine Crespin, Nicolai Gedda and Ernest Blanc under the fine Berlioz conductor Igor Markevitch.
Kunstdiva
Happy 64th birthday soprano/mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier.
Ecdysiast
Born on this day in 1911 or thereabouts actress, author and burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee.
“My music is my portrait”
Born on this day in 1899 composer Francis Poulenc.
I was born to do this
Born on this day in 1412 martyr and saint Jeanne d’Arc.
Ringmaster
Born on this day in 1917 director and impresario Wieland Wagner.
State of Grace
Happy 83rd birthday to diva Grace Bumbry.
Darling Lily
On this day in 1956 the Metropolitan Opera celebrated the 25th anniversary of the debut of soprano Lily Pons.