Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung at Canadian Opera Company deliver on fine performances even if Robert Lepage‘s production skimps on horror.
A uniformly strong cast triumphs over a dull production of Don Carlo at the Dallas Opera.
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!
Music Director Eun Sun Kim is at the center of the repertory, and a long Wagner arc is now officially underway
Two recent Paminas feature in concerts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
A messy new I puritani at the Met is a historic and historical disappointment.
Only the singers, led by Benjamin Bernheim, can salvage a dismal La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
Don Carlos returns to the Opéra National de Paris and it’s an unusually happy occasion
My first introduction to Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle was the musicologist Susan McClary’s infamous book Feminine Endings. Here, McClary likened her search of a feminist musicology to Judith’s journey through the seven doors; a journey that ends in Judith’s symbolic death.
The plight of two women, each from different backgrounds, was on full display in San Francisco opera houses last week.
Les Contes d’Hoffmann is something of a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and others been altered to fit since Offenbach died before he could complete and revise the work.
I’m old enough to remember when Yannick Nézet-Séguin could do no wrong.
Opera took center stage on the final weekend of the Philadelphia Orchestra season.
Real estate is hot along the Acela corridor right now: as proof, Judith will have toured at least three castles in New York and Boston between this spring and last.
This Sunday marked a muted return of the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala, which had the dubious distinction of the fourth edition not to feature a prizewinner and perhaps the first not to provide complete orchestral and choral accompaniment for its performers.
It’s autumn in New York, baby.
In sum: not a perfect Simon Boccanegra—is there such a thing?—but a grand and often great one.
On June 16, San Francisco Opera concluded their excellent Centennial Season with a heartfelt 100th Anniversary Concert, featuring a starry cast, three conductors (including current and former Music Directors) and the SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
Old opera productions at the end of their performing life can be sad affairs.
On the train ride home I was thinking that I don’t want to see or hear Norma ever again.
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
LOC’s Ernani is a satisfying evening of Verdi sung by four stars at the height of their powers.
The opera The Rake’s Progress, as many people know already, was inspired by a series of engravings and paintings of the same name by William Hogarth, showing the decline of a young man into depravity and insanity.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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