Wedding from hell
Les Arts Florissants (lightly) stages two Charpentier rarities as a summer wedding gone wrong.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
27 pieces since 2010.
27
pieces
17
years
The best things I saw in 2025 were Nina Stemme and Les Arts Florissants
I can’t say 2025 was my best operagoing year; apart from a superb Fille du régiment, most of my good nights at the opera were decidedly mixed affairs.
By Cornelia
Comment
Old friends, new friends
Les Arts Florissants present two ravishing programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
¡Sí, se puede!
The world premiere of Dolores and Charpentier‘s David and Jonathan bring the heat to West Edge Opera’s 2025 Festival.
Aged in oak
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
A woman scorned
Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Thomas Corneille’s Médée is a monument of the 17th century French baroque lyric tragedy.
Myth and meaning
Two short theatrical works and one sacred piece from the beguiling oeuvre of the guy who didn’t write Louise
I’ll remember April
If April is the cruelest month, it may be that spring’s arrival brings far too many things to do and see.
Louis Louis
For those who relish 17th and 18th century vocal music, the annual visits to the Morgan Library by the singers and instrumentalists of the Boston Early Music Festival invariably guarantee delight
The prodigal
Philippe Jaroussky mentioned introducing his encores that he has not appeared in New York in 12 years.
Spaced out
Before Wednesday I don’t remember gasping when I entered a concert venue.
“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.
Significant mother
As Phaedra’s tragic, all-consuming passion for her stepson Hippolytus has fascinated artists for centuries, Trove Thursday offers two of its lesser-known musical settings: Pizzetti’s opera Fedra with Régine Crespin and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson performing the cantata Phaedra, Britten’s final vocal work.
Band in Boston
In the triumphant American premiere of Orlando Generoso at the Boston Early Music Festival last week, the hippogriff was among the many stars of the show.
Frick show
French early music group Ensemble Correspondances offered two of the year’s very best concerts.
Social Medea
Simone Mayr’s Medea in Corinto, a curious work of 1813, has been revived by Will Crutchfield’s new enterprise, Teatro Nuovo.
The Otter Limits
Scheming Anne-Sofie von Otter offs her brother and sons before the opera even begins? You bet!
Goodbye, gorgeous!
Can a surfeit of pleasure become—in the end—unsatisfying?
Out of the depths
“Trove Thursday” provides a live broadcast of Mozart’s rarely performed cantata Davide Penitente by Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie.
Lyrists’ club
For one week every two years since 1981 the eyes—and ears—of those interested in period performance turn to the Boston Early Music Festival, particularly to its opera centerpiece, but that organization doesn’t rest on its laurels in between festivals.
Orpheus goes downtown
Marc-Antoine Charpentier came along at the wrong time for a composer of French opera.
Falling in love, never again
Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s opera David et Jonathas, written for a celebration at a Jesuit school in 1688, premiered together with a Latin verse drama, Saul, now lost.
Boys to men
You have only until Sunday to catch the most heart-breaking moments seen on New York City operatic stages this season.
Divas merrily on high
Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce DiDonato are not the only ladies who have recorded recitals this year featuring music from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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!
