Second casts in Don Giovanni and Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera offer mixed blessings.
In its first go-around in November 2022, Kevin Puts’s The Hours (libretto by Greg Pierce based on the novel by Michael Cunningham and the screenplay for the Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film was a box office bullseye for the Metropolitan Opera.
There is a strong case to be made that George Fridrich Handel is the composer most suited to the present moment.
I can still vividly remember the first time the music of George Frideric Handel made an impression on me.
Gioachino Rossini’s adorable adaptation of Cinderella famously dispenses with a slipper in favor of a bracelet to lead the Principe Ramiro back to his Cenerentola. If only this performance had benefitted from such a glittering guiding hand.
There’s nothing unusual about casting a woman in Solomon‘s titular role.
The film of The Hours failed to effectively weave together the novel’s trio of threads of interiority about suicide and secondarily literary creation. I wondered if an opera would stand a better chance at achieving that? Based on Tuesday’s diva-encrusted stage premiere of Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce’s The Hours, its creators didn’t pull it off either.
Dramaturgically, The Hours is a mixed bag: I wouldn’t discard it, but I would want to fix it. But simply as an evening of gorgeous music and singing, it’s cordon bleu.
Ryan McKinny’s Don is subtler, slyer, smoother, with a sharp wit and sense of dark humor that gives added dimension to the role.
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.
I was shocked to realize I hadn’t seen Don Giovanni at the Met since Michael Grandage’s stultifying production opened in 2011.
Opera Philadelphia ended its season with Le Nozze di Figaro, Friday, and it will play May 3, 5, and 7—a matinee. Figaro is considered by most to be one of the few perfect operas and although it’s perhaps too easily encountered in routine run-throughs, there are usually rewards in seeing it.
Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide (1774), the occasion of his Paris debut, gets far less respect than her sequel, Iphigénie en Tauride.
Gotham Chamber Opera stumbled so badly Friday night with Francesco Cavalli’s 1668 Eliogabalo at The Box, it was hard to know whether to feel sad or angry—or both.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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