Aix tremendae, salva me
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence confronts the living and the dead — and its own future — through audacious productions and an intimate world premiere.
Michael Levine
24 pieces since 2014 — at 11 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
24
pieces
11
companies
13
years
Extravagant minimalism
Ahead of his new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Barrie Kosky chats with Kevin Ng in Aix about pretty much everything — except the details of his new Frau.
Onegin, off again
The Ralph Fiennes production of Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera is just…fine.
Golden shower
Claus Guth mines urgent and contemporary commentary from Die Liebe der Danae in Munich.
This magic moment
Look, for one of the most-staged operas in the repertoire, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte seems awfully difficult to stage.
On the road again
When it premiered at the Opéra Comique in 1875, Carmen shocked audiences with its frank depictions of female sexuality, the proletariat, and violence: subjects that have ensured the piece’s continued relevance and that have inspired numerous retellings and revisions.
The voice of spring
“I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o’er the mountains, with light and song”
Star vehicles
This Carmen, in other words, was somewhat less radical than its initial image suggested.
To forgive, divine
Leos Janacek’s 1904 opera Jenufa could be a rather grim affair.
Crazy extremes
Simon McBurney’s Die Zauberflöte, the second new production of the Met’s May Mozart Miracle, opened on Friday to rousing near-unanimous cheers.
Love me or leaf me
Robert Carsen‘s legendary production of Eugene Onegin finally arrives in San Francisco.
Turning over an old leaf
Is there any opera that can take more of a beating while still making an impact than Eugene Onegin?
Dream a little ‘Dream’
It may have taken 28 years to see Robert Carsen’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the U. S., but it was worth waiting for.
Brute force
Alban Berg’s compact yet potent oeuvre has long played an outsized role in shaping my understanding of music’s aesthetic evolution.
The devil’s eye candy
There are shows with iconic characters, and there are shows with iconic characters playing iconic characters.
Tenors gone wild
Among several fine productions at Aix this summer, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s brilliantly conceived and executed Carmen proved a game changer.
Les feuilles mortes
Lyric Opera of Chicago concluded its 2016-17 season with a spellbinding and wonderfully sung production of Tchaikovsky’s familiar Eugene Onegin.
Cards on the table
The Canadian Opera Company scored a coup when they secured Christine Goerke for the revival of their Ring productions over the last three seasons
Stage beauty
>What does a great opera production do, and what does a bad production fail to do?
Sag, welch wunderbare Träume
First seen in 2005, Siegfried makes a welcome return as a stand-alone production this season.
After dark
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
No business like snow business
Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is his masterwork and its themes of social convention and unrequited longing surely struck a deep chord in a composer who, in late 19th century Russia, was gay and had to conduct himself carefully.
The cup runneth over
I am grateful to Sony for this new release
of the Metropolitan Opera’s latest production of Parsifal and I hope I’m not the only one who discovers what a rich experience this opera can be because of it.
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).