The leggy movie
This Met’s second production of Berg’s 1935 opera was the hot topic of November 2015.
Daniel Brenna
10 pieces since 2015 — in 4 roles, at 5 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
10
pieces
4
roles
5
companies
12
years
By role
Role Alwa
Half a million marks
Unlike my friend Greg Freed, who entertainingly wrote of his ambivalence about seeing Il trovatore in a movie theater this season, I have embraced the Met Live in HD transmissions as a part of the modern operagoing experience.
Cherchez la femme (fatale)
Lilith. Pandora. Circe. Salome. “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” Carmen. Brigid O’Shaughnessy: the eternal “femme fatale” still fascinates us.
Role Laca
Rock, star
The centerpiece of Janácek’s Jenufa was the performance of Karita Mattila as the murderous Kostelnicka.
Role Siegfried
Baby the rain must fall
As Brünnhilde invokes the gods of an empty Valhalla for one last time and strides confidently into a wall of flame, we pause for a moment, unsure of what will follow.
Human, all too human
Siegfried is, in a sense, The Ring’s odd one out.
A choice, not an ecosystem
Washington National Opera’s first Ring Cycle came to a bittersweet conclusion this past Sunday, closing the door on an extraordinary three weeks in the opera house and a remarkable musical and theatrical achievement for the company.
That ’70s show
Washington National Opera followed up Monday’s lavishly praised Die Walküre with a Siegfried that, if not quite rising to the summit of the previous installment, delivered a musically committed and eminently watchable version of this complicated work.
Role the Stranger
Strangers when we meet
The aphorisms projected before each act of Das Wunder der Heliane suggested the work concerns the transformative power of love—but does it really?