Seeing Sondra Radvanovsky as Medea at Lyric Opera of Chicago sprawled across the floor, soaked in her children’s blood, is proof that we’re witnessing an utterly haunting singer-actor.
Rigoletto at The Santa Fe Opera is a near miss.
Ainadamar functions on two levels: as a defiant dance against fascist totalitarianism and as an exaltation of the diva.
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Ainadamar never quite found its identity between the two poles of conceptual and concrete.
Opera has always been Orpheus-obsessed.
There’s nothing unusual about casting a woman in Solomon‘s titular role.
The finals on Sunday seemed a bit like the modern-day operatic equivalent of the Roman colosseum.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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