35 pieces since 2010 — in 14 roles, at 10 companies, most often at Bayreuth Festival.
Christof Loy’s highly controversial 2009 production of Berg’s Lulu for The Royal Opera House has been released on DVD (Opus Arte), with beautifully realized film direction by Robin Lough. Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra of The Royal Opera House lead an extraordinary cast of singing actors in plumbing the musical and psychological depths of this […]
Karita Mattila is a gift to this planet.
There is much to say about the similarities between the plot of Fidelio and the ancient myth of Orpheus.
Bayreuth’s AI-powered “Ring 100010110” marred a first-rate cast and orchestra with nightmarish visuals and horrid dramaturgy.
Karita Mattila’s Ortrud, taut conducting, and a remarkable debut emerge from Richard Jones’s dreary Lohengrin Konzept.
So I just got out of the Lohengrin prima at the ROH and I’m itching to share my thoughts.
This Hans Neuenfels staging for the Bayreuth Festival caused quite a stir at its 2010 premiere, but now, with time and distance, how radical is the production?
Richard Wagner believed the key to any legend was contrasting the supernatural with human nature, and showing how the combination had no chance of enduring. In Lohengrin, the title’s character’s insistence on unconditional love and trust collide with the conditional expectations of the real world. The challenge is capturing the tale’s somber majesty without losing […]
Hans Neuenfels‘ new staging of Lohengrin for Bayreuth is the grimmest version of this work I’ve seen. Not that this opera is all bright lights and lollipops, but he gave us a particularly dark take on the work, motivated, in part, by Wagner’s writings at the time of the opera’s composition.
Jay Scheib’s Augmented-Reality Parsifal is a cautionary reminder that technological innovation shouldn’t absolve directors from the exacting work of deriving intelligent and fascinating theater from the source material.
The Met’s magnificent revival which opened on Monday night with a superb cast under the mesmerizing leadership of Yannick Nézet-Séguin nearly converted me into a devoted Parsifal disciple.
“How far should we give way to grief? How far dare we, without disaster?”
One of opera’s great “what ifs?” is what would young Erich Wolfgang Korngold have contributed to the repertoire had the likes of The Adventures of Robin Hood not beckoned him to Hollywood?
Today’s Rusalka video overview covers filmed performances of Dvorák’s opera since 2010.
Rusalka and her sisters are huddled in the flooded basement.
Valentin Schwarz‘s and Simone Young‘s Ring, in its final outing at Bayreuth, is dramaturgically messy and musically excellent.
“Die Zauberflöte is an opera!” “No, it’s the first musical comedy!”
At the heart of Tobias Kratzer’s incisively rollicking production of Tannhäuser lies a metanarrative that maps Wagner’s early political and artistic challenges onto its hero’s philosophical struggles.
There is a moment about 75% of the way through the Rome Narrative where you can almost literally hear Tannhäuser’s stomach turn.
A Missa Solemnis to celebrate 125 years of Boston’s Symphony Hall was sophisticated and subdued.
Last night’s cast of Die Meistersinger at the Met, dominated by the irascible, unbeatable duo of Michael Volle and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sachs and Beckmesser, did much to enliven Otto Schenk’s creaky, nearly 30-year-old production.
In the summer of 2007, at the height of the heated speculation and public debates over who would succeed Wolfgang Wagner as the head of the Bayreuth Festival, his daughter, Katharina Wagner presented a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the festival, replacing the mind-numbingly boring one by her father (his third at […]
In the opera world, one of the pieces that underwent a multitude of changes in its reception was undoubtedly Richard Wagner’s longest and most Germanic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Klaus Florian Vogt is a singer oft discussed at parterre pox, but few have had the opportunity to hear him, especially those in the USA.
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).
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!
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