69 pieces since 2009 — in 21 roles, at 16 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
Sir David McVicar’s inept and dreary new production of Bellini’s Norma proved to be more satisfying than it had been on opening night when it returned to the Met Friday evening thanks to its new leading ladies Angela Meade and Jamie Barton
Remember that time you went to the opera and the entire evening was perfection?
Far be it from me to join the Schadenfreudian chorus of “Bye, Bye, Berti!” you may have been hearing in certain quarters, but the first thing I am duty-bound to report about San Francisco Opera’s Norma (of which three performances remain) is that they’ve hit the jackpot, coverwise.
Everyone who revives Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, as the Collegiate Chorale did at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, calls the piece an “overlooked masterpiece.”
A starry concert Aïda in Baltimore proves unusually polished
Since I began regularly attending performances at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1999, I have been a great admirer of director Francesca Zambello’s productions.
The annual Richard Tucker Gala is probably the event of the year to indulge your love of verismo staples and can belto screaming.
Rare is the revival of Il trovatore that boasts five first-rate singers, and such an occasion should be treasured. And so, at the Met last Saturday, it was.
If sheer clarion vocalism is what draws you to the opera, then hie thee to Lyric Opera of Chicago’s rousing revival Of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, the oddly plotted but musically sublime opera that opened last night in the David McVicar production, originally seen in 2006.
It was, at least, a jolly good show. Whether or not it actually suited Stravinsky’s music or Auden and Kallman’s text, is another question.
When was the last time the Metropolitan Opera mounted a new production that was musically outstanding yet the direction and/or design mostly sucked?
A regular day in 2018 Washington, D.C., or Verdi’s Don Carlo?
>Verdi’s marvelous yet neglected Luisa Miller finally returns to the Met later this month after an absence of a dozen years so “Trove Thursday” provides a preview.
Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Grammy-winning Intelligence makes a largely successful East Coast debut at Virginia Opera.
Blood-and-guts singing is the reason to see Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera this season.
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
The Metropolitan Opera delivers on the promise of Wagner’s Gesamtkunswerk in a revival of Robert Lepage’s Ring.
If Das Rheingold is an opera about infinitude, the illusory idea that the world is large enough to satisfy all of our desires, passions, and lusts, Die Walküre is an opera about scarcity.
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
It is always a pleasure to hear a great orchestra take on a major score that might sound half-muffled emerging from the pit of an opera house.
The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
Having heard a bit of the opening night broadcast and read some decidedly mixed reviews, I was totally unprepared for the remarkable performance of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena that I attended on December 15 at Chicago Lyric Opera.
Malin Byström is a radiant water nymph in the Bayerische Staatsoper‘s house-of-horrors-set Rusalka.
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” went the introduction to the 1940s radio program The Shadow, an apt description for the San Francisco Opera’s production of Rusalka.
So, how excited are you to read another piece about the Mary Zimmerman Rusalka?
With a cast of stellar singers and uneven direction by Mary Zimmerman, Dvorák’s Rusalka debuts in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera.
As Julia Child, Jamie Barton is clearly having the time of her life.
It doesn’t get more classic than John Dexter‘s Dialogues des Carmélites.
I would love to contribute a top ten list but I didn’t even go to ten things this year.
My impression was of a very fine singer performing a role that was slightly too large for him.
My first-ever Met Sunday opera brought the welcome return of Gluck’s sublime Orfeo ed Euridice in an enchanting afternoon that combined elegant conducting, joyous dancing and Jamie Barton’s extraordinary hero.
Lightning struck again here when, after a wait of 39 years, San Francisco Opera unveiled a new production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux.
As Brünnhilde invokes the gods of an empty Valhalla for one last time and strides confidently into a wall of flame, we pause for a moment, unsure of what will follow.
The 25th anniversary revival of Dead Man Walking at San Francisco Opera is most moving in its quietest moments
August on “Trove Thursday” begins with Midsummer Mezzo Madness featuring a sterling quartet of lower-voiced ladies
Washington National Opera’s first Ring Cycle came to a bittersweet conclusion this past Sunday, closing the door on an extraordinary three weeks in the opera house and a remarkable musical and theatrical achievement for the company.
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!
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).
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