This task feels near impossible, as I listen to a LOT of art song singers on repeat, across decades and continents (from piano to orchestral works) — mostly for pleasure, but also for study.
Baritone John Brancy smoothly traverses the American songbook at Carnegie Hall.
This evening of Julius Eastman at Lincoln Center was so good it hurt
An impressive cast blurs binaries as John Adams‘s ambitious Antony and Cleopatra arrives at the Met
Despite not being very happy with the state of the world (and the union) and not looking forward to the New Year, this past December I took in many festive holiday offerings including a pair of oratorios.
Pelléas and Mélisande are not transparent to themselves. Which means: they each have an unconscious.
“The distance between dreams and reality is called action.” – Brian Tracy
Only connect! So sayeth E.M. Forster (via Margaret Wilcox) in Howard’s End.
New York shall never be in need of another Messiah to assist to during the holiday season, but a new tradition is beginning to crystallize at the cavernous St. John the Divine to rival it.
German opera-director Claus Guth has reimagined Schwanengesang as a series of scarred soldier’s visions in Doppelgänger, showing this week in at the Park Avenue Armory.
June is long gone. It was truly a month of excellence and exuberance here in San Francisco, coupled with cozy and inviting weather, as if to make up for the extended winter.
If April is the cruelest month, it may be that spring’s arrival brings far too many things to do and see.
Antony and Cleopatra was an auspicious start to San Francisco Opera’s second century, a performance that seems to improve as I continue to think about it.
Michel van der Aa’s new opera UPLOAD at the Park Avenue Armory explores the various ethical issues surrounding AI while coming back to a set of classic philosophical questions about free will, pain and the nature of the soul.
Faith. The title of this fourth and final chapter of Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns made me pause for reflection.
Zauberland: An Encounter with Schumann’s Dichterliebe touched on themes of forced migration, loss, exile, and dehumanization.
Julia Bullock revisited a few well-trodden song cycles and lieder but pointed up their hidden politics.
“Trove Thursday” offers a vernal take on Massenet’s magical Cendrillon (in English) featuring two sopranos: Margaret Price—not yet 30—and Anne Pashley, then just 35.
I really wished to avoid joining the pig pile of derision that has fallen on SF Opera’s premiere of John Adams and Peter Sellars’ Girls of the Golden West.
Among several fine productions at Aix this summer, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s brilliantly conceived and executed Carmen proved a game changer.
New York City isn’t a bad place to live, operatically-speaking.
I fall on my knees before this new live recording
issued by the San Francisco Symphony.
Joyce, Javier and now Julia—this week these three remarkable Js brought New York City memorable “Cinderella stories.”
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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