There was a moment during Natalie Dessay’s performance of Schubert’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade” when the singer summoned the ghost of her former self.
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is a pearl itself and this presentation proffers some of the best that company has to offer.
The concert presented by Opera Lafayette at the Alliance Française last Friday and Saturday was devoted to music of witty, short-lived Emmanuel Chabrier, notably Une Éducation Manquée.
“Trove Thursday” presents Don Procopio, an early two-act confection in Italian featuring an all-star French (and Belgian) cast.
On Saturday, a new company called Bare Opera gave its first performance, a double bill of Debussy’s L’Enfant Prodigue and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, at the Robert Miller Gallery in Chelsea.
Press quotes on the back of this new release from EMI of Georges Bizet’s masterpiece promise ”a stylish and cliché-free Carmen” and on most fronts I think it’s a fair assessment.
Camille Saint-Saëns was such a brilliant, facile musician that pals like Wagner and Liszt felt a distinct schadenfreude when he suffered composer’s block.
You Parterrestrials know all about Santa Fe Opera’s amazing mountain setting and open-sided theater affording breathtaking sunsets, weather-related drama and–when the back stage wall is opened–starry backdrops, but it was my first visit, so indulge me a little.
Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades straddles two genres. With a macabre plot that explores the boundaries of human obsession, it’s an early psychological thriller that makes the audience engage in a kind of voyeurism Alfred Hitchcock loved. Yet the plot drawn from Pushkin and the striking Romantic score with its references to Mozart, Bizet and Grétry firmly…
Everything I need to know about Bizet I learned at a Judy Chicago exhibit in 1996. Brutality against women is pervasive, and society is culpable by permitting it. Such grievances were aired at the expense of the composer’s chef d’oeuvre Carmen yesterday at La Scala’s Gala opening, viewed dal vivo at Symphony Space on 95th and Broadway.
So, I was asking my friends with Met Opera insider connections about the new Hoffmann production directed by Bartlett Sher. Seemingly conceived under an unlucky star, this production first lost two of its four heroines when Anna Netrebko decided not sing Olympia and Giulietta but kept Antonia and also Stella, leaving the dramaturgy somewhat lopsided.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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