Dad, I’m seria
Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra strike (almost) all the right notes in their new recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo.
Allan Clayton
16 pieces since 2011 — in 6 roles, at 4 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
16
pieces
6
roles
4
companies
16
years
Role Gran Sacerdote
Role Hamlet
Angry young men
Since April four wildly varied incarnations of Hamlet have been haunting New York City theaters; the most recent to arrive was Robert Icke’s chicly contemporary take on Shakespeare’s play which opened last week at the Park Avenue Armory.
Resisting the recognizable
It was Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto, with its disorientingly deconstructive approach to its source text, that gave Brett Dean’s Hamlet its identity.
Role John
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
George Benjamin’s 2012 opera Written on Skin received great acclaim at its opening at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Royal Opera quickly mounted it in March 2013.
Role Lysander
Two ghosts
The ENO was filled with ghosts last week. Spectral, possibly illusory figures fleetingly materialized in the Internet chatrooms that provide the setting for much of Nico Muhly’s new opera Two Boys, and brutal boarding school memories came back to troubled life in director Christopher Alden’s dark take on Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Role Peter Grimes
Married to their jobs
Ahead of their opening in Don Carlo in Dallas tonight, Christopher Corwin chats with Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis — and offers a special edition of Chris’s Cache!
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.
Role Septimius
Deeds of kindness to review
For decades thousands and thousands have attended Handel’s Messiah (usually around Christmas or more appropriately near Easter) making it easily one of the most widely known works of classical music.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
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).
