Troy story
Lyric Opera of Chicago rose to the challenges mightily in its first-ever performance of Les Troyens.
Lucas Meachem
25 pieces since 2015 — in 13 roles, at 7 companies, most often at San Francisco Opera.
25
pieces
13
roles
7
companies
12
years
By role
Role Choroebus
Role Count Almaviva
A delicate balance
For anyone who thought that Downton Abbey, with its plot lines divided between the gentry and their faithful (or not-so) servants was somehow unique, that particular tale, and lo its many variations, has been told in one form or another since Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais put quill to paper in 1778 with La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro.
Role Count di Luna
Basque in the glory
For the opening night of Il Trovatore, Houston Grand Opera’s new production aimed high, bringing together a star-studded cast and a fresh, contemporary take on Verdi’s intense drama.
Role De Siriex
Poison of interest
Following new productions of Tosca in 2017, Adriana Lecouvreur in 2018, and the Anna Netrebko-led Puccini orgy of 2019, New Year’s Eve at the Met has come to signify that verismo, as this school tends to be known, is still kicking.
Role Don Giovanni
They’re projecting
I love it, truly, just not that much.
Give me libertine
Ryan McKinny’s Don is subtler, slyer, smoother, with a sharp wit and sense of dark humor that gives added dimension to the role.
Darkness on the edge of town
Lyric Opera of Chicago’as Don Giovanni lands smack dab in the middle of our current debate about wanted or unwanted sexual advances and outright sexual abuse.
Role Figaro
Stop me if you’ve heard this one
Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and a slew of their members of court are hanging out in the afterlife…
Busyness as usual
Emilio Sagi’s production of The Barber of Seville is ungepotchket in the flesh.
Drop dead diva
My first experience with John Corigliano’s music was in high school with the ear and mind blowing score he wrote for Ken Russell’s film Altered States.
Role Germont
Three faces of Violetta
Christopher Corwin surveys the three Traviata casts — led by Lisette Oropesa, Rosa Feola, and Ermonela Jaho — at the Met this spring.
Role Guglielmo of Baskerville
Not an asset to the abbey
Francesco Filidei’s new opera The Name of the Rose struggles to bridge the past and the present in Milan
Role Marcello
The sweet escape?
A plodding La bohème in San Francisco never quite takes off
Technical difficulties
La bohéme returned to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera once again last night (does it ever leave?)
A voice that must be heard
At the center of the Met’s revival of Puccini’s La bohème, one found the rich and layered talent of Angel Blue.
Role Mercutio
Get this Pati started
Politics and romance entangled in a spectacular fashion at San Francisco Operas’s Roméo et Juliette.
Role Prince Yeletsky
Skeleton key
Original Director Richard Jones and revival director Benjamin Davis have created a staging that veers wildly between fascinating and fatally flawed.
Role Sharpless
The voice of spring
“I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o’er the mountains, with light and song”
Looking for Trouble
The ailing and grief-stricken Pinkerton was shown to give his son a diary about his time in Nagasaki, and as Trouble read it, he (and the audience) was taken back in time as the story came to life, similar to the use of Pensieve in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4).
Role Wolfram
Do you believe in magic?
Remember that time you went to the opera and the whole evening was like magic? Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion probably ranks among my greatest nights in the theater and I’m finding the superlatives in my thesaurus inadequate to the task.
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).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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!
