High and dry
Ilana Walder-Biesanz reports from The Santa Fe Opera, where Tobias Picker‘s latest opera falls short, a new Rodelinda scintillates, and sumptuous singing abounds across the entire repertoire.
James Robinson
12 pieces since 2010 — at 6 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
12
pieces
6
companies
17
years
If you’re cold, they’re cold
La bohème at The Santa Fe Opera feels warmed over in more ways than one.
Tenue farfalla
A revival of Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly, a co-production between the Barbican and BBC Symphony Orchestra, landed in London last week.
Blow the house down
Hailed as the first opera by an African-American composer performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones was a huge audience and box office hit in the Fall of 2021 when it reopened the Met after two seasons shut down by COVID-19.
Boxer briefs
I had some trepidation about attending Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion because the “sport” of boxing has never appealed to me.
A winner and new ‘Champion’
To paraphrase Terence Blanchard’s Champion, what makes an opera an opera?
In the line of ‘Fire’
A co-production of Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, and Los Angeles Opera, Fire Shut Up In My Bones blazed into Chicago as a stunning, highly emotional and moving performance.
All I cared about was Bess
Opera’s latest superstar, Angel Blue, in a compleat and enthralling portrayal, gloriously sung and rivetingly acted.
Wintertime, and the living is easy
Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s 1935 “folk” opera, graced the stage of Dutch National Opera for the first time last month, and it was resounding success from start to finish.
Ring cycle
Washington National Opera continued a focus on recent works this season with Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer’s 2013 opera Champion on the life of boxer Emile Griffith.
Comedy on the Calais Coach
Friday night Music Director James Conlon sold Die Entfürhung aus dem Serial to a tony crowd of Angelenos.
Brits blow it again
A drag queen friend of La Cieca’s — long before she was La Cieca — used to have an expression she to describe the terminally inept. The queen would say, “That guy could screw up a blowjob.” By which she meant, of course, receiving a blowjob, i.e., just sitting there, or standing there or whatever.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
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).
