Cross my heart and hope to die
Wolf Trap Opera’s stirring production of Dialogues des Carmélites was a welcome respite from a brutally hot and humid DC summer.
Geoffrey McDonald
14 pieces since 2014 — at 7 companies, most often at On Site Opera.
14
pieces
7
companies
13
years
Ceaseless mugging
The phrase “immersive Coffee Cantata experience” evokes being dipped into a giant, boiling vat of java.
Spark plug
Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen‘s star is surely on the rise.
Love letters
March 2, 2020 – June 18, 2021: Those 15 months were the longest I’ve gone without attending a live opera performance since high school.
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.
Touch the sky
It would be hard to imagine a more apt and poignant metaphor for the ambitious O18 Festival than the world premiere of Lembit Beecher and Hannah Moscovitch’s Sky on Swings.
Morning glory
Wedlock, betrayal, sibling rivalry, feminism, and union strikes give the opera Morning Star much of its driving thematic material.
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.
Al fresco
Poor Paisiello. Out of the nearly 100 operas written by this industrious composer just one was generally regarded as a masterpiece.
Notes from the underground
Director R.B. Schlather and his team explored Handel’s Orlando and the results, as seen at Monday night’s final presentation, proved uncommonly stimulating.
About last night
For those who like their Handel loud, with no forfeit of baroque finesse, one promising solution is to make the hall smaller.
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).