Vox populi
In Bayreuth, a confident Magnus Vigilius and luminous Jennifer Holloway attempt to elevate Wagner’s populist Rienzi.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
41 pieces since 2010.
41
pieces
17
years
(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.
“Modern convention is the oddity”
Michael Spyres talks to Kevin Ng about his winding path as a baritenor, which composer he wants to conquer next, and how he makes Wagner work in his voice — and in his native Ozarks.
Seder play
A new DVD recording of La Juive boasts considerable musical strengths in spite of a frustrating production.
Psyché’d up
It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: “Charmante Psyché!”
All the fine young cannibals
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
Comic relief
Pacific Opera Project’s high-spirited revival of Fra Diavolo is both therapy and an escape.
The open wound that will never heal
In his new production that opens at San Francisco Opera this weekend, Matthew Ozawa is creating a Parsifal for the cancel culture age.
My soul is eager for this kind of pain
Ross Wassermann tracks the development of “Che farò senza Euridice?” — and “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” — for this month’s Perspectives on an Aria
A matinée, a Pinto play
Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s? For Wagner Month, Chris’s Cache offers the unexpected collaboration Die drei Pintos, started by Wagner-predecessor Carl Maria von Weber and completed by one of Wagner’s followers, Gustav Mahler
Singing from our chains
There are two problems to address – problems of the sort the arts thrive on addressing.
Anabaptism by fire
As revivals of the composer’s sprawling works represent a daunting expense for many opera houses, exceptionally cast recordings of such concert performances serve as valuable documents that foster appreciation for his achievements.
Dagonistic pluralism
To bring a well-known story to the stage, many methods are available.
Thoughts on La Gioconda: the opera
Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might not be a perfect opera (though I don’t see why not) but it is one of my favorites…
Not since Nineveh
Franz Liszt attempted practically every musical genre in vogue in the nineteenth century, although it is undeniable that a handful of the genres he only sampled (like string quartet) or adapted to his own temperament in original ways (like the symphony).
A summer of solace
From Christian martyrs to naughty fairies, Teatro Nuovo will explore the tragic and comic sides of 19th century Italian Opera.
The beautiful and damned
On this day in 1965 Montserrat Caballé and Sherrill Milnes made their Metropolitan Opera debuts in Faust.
No sex please, we’re German
Why is so twinkling, tuneful a score so little known?
A whole new world
The Paris Opera assembled an all-French cast to stage arguably the most well-known example of opéra-ballet, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes.
Still crazy after all these years
A return to Amore Opera’s production of Meyerbeer’s Dinorah to hear the second cast underlined two conclusions.
Lite Meyerbeer
Amore Opera, one of New York’s smaller opera companies, is presenting the first local run of Dinorah, ou le Pardon de Ploërmel since before the war.
Thousands cheer
Although Gustav Mahler never wrote an opera, his colossal Eighth Symphony “The Symphony of a Thousand” may give us some glimpses of what a Mahler opera might have sounded like
Paris was burning
Logistically, a large-scale revival of the operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer is an unreasonable request, much less an expectation.