Hercules conquers Carnegie
William Guanbo Su and Ann Hallenberg are compelling in The English Concert’s presentation of Handel‘s Hercules at Carnegie Hall.
Luc Bondy
28 pieces since 2009 — at 2 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
28
pieces
2
companies
18
years
By company
Staring into the abbess
Dan Johnson gives an inside look at the creation of Sarah Kirkland Snider‘s rapturous new opera Hildegard which opens at New York’s PROTOTYPE Festival next week.
Shocker and awe
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
(Yet more) Thoughts on ‘Don Carlos’: Coronations and finales
In any case, we are now in the Queen’s garden of the Palace in Madrid. It is the day before the coronation of King Philip. Coronation? What coronation?
Uphill climb
The Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho is surely the reason that Covent Garden has made a commercial release of this “Live to Cinemas” relay from March of 2017.
Atonement
Sondra Radvanovsky changed my opinion of her through a single performance—I’ll never think of her the same way again; the power of her singing overwhelmed my previous impressions.
Safe passage
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
Bringing up Bondy
The more ignorant segments of the public and the critical establishment continue to shout praise to David McVicar‘s torpid Tosca as the greatest triumph of the reactionary since the Bourbon Restoration.
E avanti a lui russava tutta Roma
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
Tears of blood
After two previous productions of Tosca in New York City this season (the Met’s revival of the controversial Luc Bondy version and NYCO Renaissance’s depressingly retrograde take), New Yorkers finally got a pleasing, if rough-edged, performance of the Puccini classic from LoftOpera.
Veiled threat
Angela Gheorghiu‘ s idiosyncratically alluring, sometimes maddening, always fascinating Floria Tosca inevitably became the evening’s unmissable raison d’être.
Lounge act
After nearly three years and over 20 performances Michael Mayer’s “Las Vegas” production of Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera still outrages many.
Running, jumping, or burning Gaul
Far be it from me to join the Schadenfreudian chorus of “Bye, Bye, Berti!” you may have been hearing in certain quarters, but the first thing I am duty-bound to report about San Francisco Opera’s Norma (of which three performances remain) is that they’ve hit the jackpot, coverwise.
Dancing with the star
After listening to “Stella di Napoli,” her mightily impressive new CD
of rare bel canto arias just released by Erato, I felt many of the old sparks reigniting.
Canard en retard
Please forgive the lateness of this week’s howler, which in any event is something more of a squeaker anyway.
The sun also rises
If you’re the sort who prefers his diva to be an unapproachable sphinx prone to infuriating cancellations while radiating ennui, I suspect that the sunny, hard-working, grateful persona of American mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato will not appeal to you at all.
Miss Mannered
Joyce DiDonato enjoys the rare cachet of having three studio-recorded operas released in the past three years while other famous divas must be content with “just” DVDs. Although two of Renée Fleming’s Violettas have found their way onto video in less than five years (why??), “the people’s diva” has only recorded one studio opera in […]
Second chance?
Okay, so here’s that Luc Bondy production of Tosca again, this time as seen at the Bayerische Staatsoper earlier this summer, with the “original cast” of Karita Mattila and the singer who did all the rehearsals in New York until the last week, Juha Uusitalo. They rehearsed again for the co-production in Munich for festival performances and […]
Three for the show
Luc Bondy’s Tosca returned to the Met on Wednesday night with an entirely new set of principals and conductor. The new trio of principal singers, all making local role debuts, could not redirect and redesign the production but they could allow their individual talents to outshine their surroundings.
What not to wear
The Met’s premiere production of Verdi’s Attila is terrible. Are you surprised? Attila is like a self-conscious stroll down Rodeo Drive – or even worse, to the Mall of America – reducing an opera about ruthless tyranny brought down by ruthless vengeance to a quaint and insipid fashion show.
Dry cleaning
First things first: how are the clothes? Well, there’s enough leather to fill The Eagle ten times over, and there’s definitely fodder for intermission conversation: an adorable tweedy, puffy coat for Uldino; the pimped-out spiky bike helmet with the L.E.D. lights for Attila; all the L.E.D. lights in fact, like the ones that outline Ezio’s […]
Tosca’s dress
So the question was raised (on opera-l, actually, but La Cieca doesn’t mind discussing it in more downmarket venues): in Luc Bondy‘s production of Tosca, Karita Mattila appears in the third act in an entirely new outfit, a sort of tailored trenchcoat of dark leather-like fabric, but whatever she’s wearing, isn’t is a mistake?
Gualtier tells “Tales”
So, I was asking my friends with Met Opera insider connections about the new Hoffmann production directed by Bartlett Sher. Seemingly conceived under an unlucky star, this production first lost two of its four heroines when Anna Netrebko decided not sing Olympia and Giulietta but kept Antonia and also Stella, leaving the dramaturgy somewhat lopsided.
Lock Up Raw
The Met’s new production of Janacek’s From the House of the Dead sets high standards for the company, but as an indicator of the Gelb Era, it may be too good to be true.