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.
Saturday night’s Rosenkavalier at the Met was an evening of excess — beautiful singing, sensitive acting, elaborate sets, and an unfortunate business that mars Robert Carsen’s otherwise excellent production.
Günther Groissböck’s ridiculously entertaining Baron Ochs and Sir Simon Rattle’s enthralling conducting soared highest during a mostly excellent revival of Der Rosenkavalier.
Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper’s victory lap at Carnegie Hall concluded Thursday night with a sumptuous Der Rosenkavalier spectacularly conducted by Kirill Petrenko
I am happy to finally add Les contes d’Hoffmann to the playlist in a Salzburg performance from 2003 with Neil Shicoff in one of his parade roles.
The production by Sebastian Baumgarten is the type of regietheater that’s not a rethinking or reconstruction, but just a hot mess.
Soprano Renée Fleming is certainly making the role of the Countess in Richard Strauss’s final opera Capriccio the focus of her late-career years.
Certain contemporary opera directors have taken to portraying Wagner protagonists as visual artists to better illuminate the characters’ moral and aesthetic struggles.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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