Less is more
Vanessa is spare and compelling in Heartbeat Opera’s production.
Gian Carlo Menotti
17 pieces since 2010.
17
pieces
17
years
The best thing I saw in 2025 was Vanessa
“Let me look around once more. Who knows when I shall see this house again?”
By Peter Russell
Comment
Lucky those people who are so anxious to believe
A high-drama Vanessa by the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers something to believe in.
Shadows of a doubt
R.B. Schlather‘s shadowy production with Heartbeat Opera at the Williamstown Theatre Festival proves that Vanessa might be coming into its own at last
Avant de quitter la scène
As of late, the Bay Area has been blessed with a few high-wattage, high-profile recitals as if to compensate for the chilly temperatures and gloomy weather. Roughly a month after Lise Davidsen made an ebullient debut at Cal Performances, the Bay Area welcomed French soprano Natalie Dessay last Saturday.
“Judicious liberality”
On this day in 1883 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company premiere of La traviata.
Don’t you forget about me
HERE’s new radio opera marks itself out by leaning into the dramatic affordances of the audio-only format in No One is Forgotten, an adaptation of a play by Winter Miller with new music by Paola Prestini and Sxip Shirey.
Well equipped
While last year’s finals were dominated by early nineteenth-century bel canto arias, this year’s finalists took on a remarkably broad range of music from a variety of repertoires.
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.
One ringy-dingy
Opera Upper West recently tweeted an unfortunate picture of me.
Claramae Turner 1920-2012
The American contralto, who created the title role in Menotti’s The Medium and introduced the song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” died May 18. She was 92.
A dude? Am I a dude? Madame Flora, a dude?
It’s just not true that Gian Carlo Menotti composed The Medium as an opera only because he couldn’t get Joan Crawford to do it when his libretto was originally a screenplay.
I hear American singing
Since an early appearance as Schaunard in Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway La bohème, barihunk Daniel Okulitch has been steadily building a substantial career. Along with noteworthy performances as Don Giovanni in New York and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro in Los Angeles, much of his career has been centered on contemporary work. He has leading […]
Just salvage
Santa Fe has done a brave and laudable thing is presenting the first major revival of The Last Savage in decades, and if the libretto were, perhaps, translated into Hindu, the production values, excellence of cast, and directorial choices could conceivably work their magic of, if not pulling a rabbit out of a hat, then […]
Ripped from the headlines
They’ve been celebrating the centennial of Gian-Carlo Menotti lately, spouting wild claims for the immortality of his music. He did have an impressive run of successes in the 1940s, but he lived till 2007 with many more premieres and nary another hit.
Abel bodied
I received a package in the mail this afternoon from La Cieca, and eagerly tore it open. I knew that this was to be my parterre review assignment… rapture! It was a CD of an opera: The Brothers composed by… George Antheil? Who the fuck is that? After researching him for a bit, I got […]
Worth the wait
Arthaus Musik has released on DVD a superb 1963 “Historical Studio Production” of Der Konsul, a German language filmed version of Menotti’s 1950 opera, The Consul. It is a dark, harrowing vision of Menotti’s “denunciation of all forms of tyranny”, beautifully sung, superbly acted, and directed with an almost film noir/expressionistic style by Rudolph Cartier. […]