Death becomes him
Tancredi, given on February 10th, was a credit to Opera Philadelphia, who offered a well-considered and compelling production.
Brenda Rae
19 pieces since 2012 — in 14 roles, at 7 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
19
pieces
14
roles
7
companies
15
years
By role
Role Amenaide
Role Aminta
Were you silent or were you silenced
A new production of Die schweigsame Frau at the Berlin Staatsoper has precious little to say.
Role Armida
Schoolboy crush
Handel’s 1711 opera Rinaldo was the first Italian opera ever written specifically for the London stage.
Role Arminda
The Multiverse of Morley
A Trove Thursday Mega-Post © featuring the wonderful American soprano Erin Morley in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Richard Strauss’s Brentano Lieder, plus extended live excerpts from Handel’s Orlando, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots.
Role Aspasia
Acting is rè acting
Boston Lyric Opera’s shows, of late, are often going to war with their texts.
Role Ginevra
In the baroque midwinter
It’s been a rough winter in Chicago, and an especially rough one for lead singers at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Role Lucia
Dark shadows
Those who want a rethought Lucia to allow the heroine more sense of agency will be especially confounded at Laurent Pelly’s reading.
Role Madama Cortese
Museum quality
Opera Philadelphia’s Il viaggio a Reims in a nutshell: Hyperactive, confusing, and distracting from (and sometimes for) the singers? Yes. Imaginative, wildly entertaining, and musically rewarding? Absolutely.
Role Marie
Don’t tread on Marie
Boston Lyric Opera’s Revolutionary War-set Daughter of the Regiment prioritizes accessibility without losing its charm.
Role Odette Kahn
A barrel of laughs
Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer‘s bubbly The Judgement of Paris brings a distinctly Californian terroir to operatic comedy.
Role Ophelia
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 Polissena
Thrace off
Nearly 30 years after a Handel opera last played there, Carnegie Hall presented The English Concert opening a three-year opera-oratorio project on Sunday afternoon with Radamisto.
Role Poppea
Keep the Rome fires burning
Handel’s biting Agrippina finally arrived at the Metropolitan Opera Thursday evening 310 years after its Venetian premiere.
Role Zerbinetta
Desert island diva
This sterling revival shows the Metropolitan to be surviving well and in good shape.
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).
