Festspiel for the consecration of the French Quarter Festspiel for the consecration of the French Quarter

The inaugural New Orleans Opera Festival goes big across the Big Easy.

Elucidate and complicate Elucidate and complicate

It takes a lot to stop a show with a few minutes of music—and that is exactly what Leah Hawkins did during the 2019 run of Porgy and Bess at The Metropolitan Opera.

Hiding in plain sight Hiding in plain sight

An air of discovery pervaded the first New York presentation of La ville morte much the way that it pervades the opera’s plot itself.

Silent treatment Silent treatment

It is perhaps a misperception to suggest that Die Schweigsame Frau is stronger in the uncut version.

Stage mother Stage mother

The internecine machinations of those who ruled—or sought to rule—the Roman Empire have long provided rich material for writers and composers, and on Thursday evening operamission continued its ambitious plan to stage in chronological order all of Handel’s operas by presenting one of the most delicious of those Roman-based works, Agrippina which premiered in Venice in 1709.

Sail, away

Sir Arthur Sullivan, the son of an Irish father and an Italian mother, studied Mendelssohn’s composition style in Leipzig. He was therefore, inevitably, the supreme English theater composer of his day, and his often Mozartean style of melody is not out of place in a bel canto festival. After all, in the fourteen operettas he…