The clue whose meaning we avoid
We watch Peter Grimes being made into a deviant— a process that can take place through the mechanism of the law, but often happens outside of it through social processes.
Adam Plachetka
21 pieces since 2013 — in 11 roles, at 4 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
21
pieces
11
roles
4
companies
14
years
By role
Role Balstrode
Role Belcore
His cup runneth over
As portrayed by Vittorio Grigolo, Nemorino was a manic self-absorbed, probably bipolar, stalker who—against all odds and good sense—gets the poor girl.
Role Count
Breaking the box
Jacquelyn Stucker talks to Kevin Ng about repertoire, tearing down the Fach system, and what it takes to make music from baroque to George Benjamin her own.
Let your love flow
Saturday afternoon’s performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Met was awash with contradictions.
Role Count Almaviva
Down for the Count
An uneven new cast can’t dim the glow of Richard Eyre‘s incisive Le nozze di Figaro at the Met
A crazier day
Saturday’s performance of Le nozze di Figaro at the Met mined the humor from Mozart’s divine setting of Beaumarchais’s play about a crazy day in the Almaviva household.
Midwinter marriage
Despite having lost its announced Cherubino, conductor and Count (the latter in the midst of rehearsals), the season premiere of Le Nozze di Figaro Saturday afternoon proved to be one of the most enjoyable Met Mozart performances I’ve attended in ages.
Role Figaro
Better than the sum of its parts
Is there any opera more bullet-proof than Le Nozze di Figaro?
Sparkle, Lyric, sparkle!
It’s an old chestnut of a joke that applies even more to opera than to the theatre: A veteran actor is on his deathbed.
Forgiveness
It was odd, if not downright uncomfortable, to watch Le Nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera.
Role Garibaldo
Seria effect
While it must be admitted that Elza van den Heever doesn’t have an ideally warm and agile Handel voice, she evidenced fierce control over her instrument and skillfully built a powerful portrait of the courageous Rodelida fighting for her survival.
Role Guglielmo
The help
As Despina in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Così fan tutte, Kelli O’Hara injects much needed vitality into an otherwise lethargic evening.
Doing it again
The 19th century could not cope with Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (Thus Do They All, or The School for Lovers) with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte and music by Mozart, first presented in Vienna in 1790.
Role Hercule
A spouse tale
A performance of Gluck’s Alceste from Wiener Staatsoper in June 2016.
Role Leporello
Nervous system theater
Like a sommelier of male entitlement, Peter Mattei paired with precision moves from a wide-ranging vocabulary of gesture.
Strangers in the night
One needs liberty in order to be a libertine.
Role Marcello
Playing in the rafters
Opera took center stage on the final weekend of the Philadelphia Orchestra season.
Dreamers with empty hands
It’s autumn in New York, baby.
Role Schaunard
Bohemian
No surprises this week: back to normal with what is perhaps the world’s most favorite opera: Puccini’s La bohème.