Foolish love
The Met ushers out this wretched year and rings in the new with an elegant and effective new production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
Laurent Naouri
24 pieces since 2009 — in 15 roles, at 8 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
24
pieces
15
roles
8
companies
18
years
By role
Role Capulet
Role Coppelius, Dapertutto, Miracle, Spalanzani
Drunk history
Last night was my fourth or fifth wade into the slough of Bartlett Sher’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Met since its premiere in 2009.
Role Golaud
Unconscious coupling
Pelléas and Mélisande are not transparent to themselves. Which means: they each have an unconscious.
La lune est encore sur la mer
There was a general feeling of homecoming in the hall on Friday evening in anticipation of what promised to be a special return visit on many levels.
Role High Priest
Everybody dance now
Austin McCormack‘s lascivious choreography outshone a tepid and tedious staging of Saint-Saëns’s old-testament epic.
Shorn yesterday
For opening night 2018, the Met offered the creaky but appealing biblical epic Samson et Dalila, presumably as a vehicle for Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna.
Role Jupiter
A Fly in Her Ear
Opera and comedy can be a very awkward match. Despite the number of comic operas in the standard rep, most opera fans don’t seek out a local production of, say, Die Entführung aus dem Serail because they need a giggle and 30 Rock is a repeat that night. And so the 1997 Opéra National de […]
Role Lindorf, Coppelius, Miracle, Dapertutto
Contes stop the music
Trove Thursday wades into the murky musicological waters of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann..
Role Marquis
Pragmatism and ideology
It doesn’t get more classic than John Dexter‘s Dialogues des Carmélites.
Role Pandolfe
After midnight
The Met’s Cinderella is a charming adaptation of Massenet’s opera. Frothy, fun, and enchanting, it is a magical holiday treat for the whole family to enjoy.
Every little thing she does is magic
A good time seemed to be had by all though I don’t recall seeing a single child in attendance.
I want magic
Why, only now, Cendrillon is having its premiere at the Met is a puzzling question.
Role Police Chief
There’s a parade in town
Les Brigands at the Paris Opera is an expensive joke that never lands
Role Polifemo
A river runs through it
I can think of no other case that resembles Handel’s complex relationship to the story—derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses—of the ill-fated love between the shepherd Acis and the sea nymph Galatea.
Role Roland
Back to baroque
The always elegant Véronique Gens has recently returned often to her earliest roots in the French baroque.
Role Roland Cassard
Chantons sous la pluie
Walking away from Theatre Châtelet this afternoon, I felt as though my relationship with France and its notoriously perplexing people and culture had at long last reached some degree of depth.
Role Ruprecht
Like an angel passing through my room
Tonight at the Met should have welcomed Barrie Kosky’s production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel; in its absence Trove Thursday steps in with a recent broadcast featuring this summer’s breakout star Ausrine Stundyte as the enigmatic Renata.
Role Saül
“Jonathan loved him as his own soul”
Trove Thursday celebrates Pride with a Bible-based homoerotic sort-of opera not by the guy who wrote “Depuis le jour”: Charpentier’s David et Jonathas with Mark Padmore, Laurent Naouri and Jaël Azzaretti led by Emmanuelle Haïm.
Role Sir William
All the fine young cannibals
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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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).
