Patience and fortitude
Gregory Spears’ latest opera Castor and Patience, with a libretto by former US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy K. Smith, was commissioned by Cincinnati Opera to celebrate its centennial season in 2020.
Jennifer Johnson Cano
16 pieces since 2013 — in 10 roles, at 5 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
16
pieces
10
roles
5
companies
14
years
By role
Role Celeste
Role Elizabeth
Automaton poem
With only a few weeks left to slice up our pumpkins and track down the perfect Luigi for our Mario, the timing seems right for a pair of Gothic operas set in a crypt.
Role Emilia
Lion, tamer
At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
A whiter shade of pale
While the celebrity-studded, expensively-dressed audience gathered for the gala opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-2016 season seemed genuinely enthralled by Monday evening’s performance of Otello, it was more likely swept away by the power of Verdi’s genius than by Bartlett Sher’s puzzling, inert new production.
Role Fox
Barn yesterday
The Cleveland Orchestra’s premiere performance of Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen proved to be both a critical and audience success.
Role Meg Page
Kitchen confidential
Since 1985, from the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Hall to the Welsh National Opera visiting BAM and from Chicago Lyric to New York City Opera to the Met, I’ve never encountered a bad Falstaff—or one that didn’t astound and delight me.
He is big
Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera, is exuberantly inventive, bubbling and roiling with ideas the 79-year-old composer was too impatient to develop.
Role Mrs. Grose
Marriage is what brings us together today
Le nozze di Figaro in Santa Fe is a light and kindly revival while The Turn of the Screw is crisp and atmospheric
Role Rhinemaiden
In the River Rhine. In it.
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.
Role Suzuki
Cavalcade of stars
Back-to-back casts in the Metropolitan Opera’s revivals of Madama Butterfly and La traviata offer ample opportunity for soprano-gazing.
Role Valkyrie
Operation desert storm
The Santa Fe Opera’s fine first Die Walküre finds Wagner in America at a crossroads.
Role Virginia Woolf
Shining ‘Hours’
Dramaturgically, The Hours is a mixed bag: I wouldn’t discard it, but I would want to fix it. But simply as an evening of gorgeous music and singing, it’s cordon bleu.
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).
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!
