(A)nything (B)ut (C)armen
Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
Eric Einhorn
14 pieces since 2014 — at 4 companies, most often at On Site Opera.
14
pieces
4
companies
13
years
Road shows
Brendan Latimer hitches a ride with members of the “site-responsive opera” movement who are taking their shows out of the opera house — and out of the box.
Hunger games
Director Richard Jones’ well-traveled and visually arresting production of Humperdinck’s 1893 opera Hansel and Gretel has returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago after a 10-year absence.
Love for sail
Last weekend, On Site Opera presented What Lies Beneath, a program of maritime-themed operatic excerpts staged aboard the 19th century schooner Wavertree (now a part of the South Street Seaport Museum).
Nearly there
On Site Opera’s Turn of the Screw, an immersive production set in the Bronx’s Wave Hill Gardens, featured mostly good singing and a few directorial and technological missteps.
Miracle on 28th street
This a sincere revival with a social conscience, a chance to take immersive part in the Christmas miracle, not just watch it remotely.
Morning glory
Wedlock, betrayal, sibling rivalry, feminism, and union strikes give the opera Morning Star much of its driving thematic material.
Puritani, as the driven snow
It was an afternoon of spectacular singing, particularly from the two principals and the glorious Lyric Opera Chorus.
Hell’s kitchen
Hansel and Gretel might just be the best thing the Met has done so far this season.
Guilt, edged
If Darius Milhaud took a risk in adapting La Mère Coupable as an opera, it wasn’t the quirky, atonal style he used for his score.
Home brew
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
Doge days
That Placido Domingo and James Levine, the Met’s inexorable septuagenarians, would team up yet again—on April Fools’ Day, no less—for a revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra occasioned an uncomfortable degree of doubt and dread.
Al fresco
Poor Paisiello. Out of the nearly 100 operas written by this industrious composer just one was generally regarded as a masterpiece.
Waxy buildup
I avoided visiting any waxworks establishment until On Site Opera’s lively production of Rameau’s one-act Pygmalion summoned me Tuesday evening to Madame Tussauds just off New York City’s Times Square.
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).