(A)nything (B)ut (C)armen
Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
Modest Mussorgsky
17 pieces since 2010.
17
pieces
17
years
His infinite variety
Bass-baritone Le Bu’s recital with Vocal Arts DC highlighted his linguistic and timbral versatility.
Now I’m an old believer
Big voices overwhelm Claus Guth‘s toothless staging of Khovanshchina at the Berlin Staatsoper.
Changing habits
A new production of Dialogues des Carmélites featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci proves that it’s hard to be an iconoclast in Venice.
Mälkki way
When the New York Philharmonic announced Gustavo Dudamel as its next music director earlier this year, speculation arose immediately as to who would take his place out West when he leaves the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2026.
Citizen of the world
Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron showed herself unafraid to move the expectations of classical music forward, linguistically, thematically, and culturally.
Bolder sister
Brigitte Fassbaender‘s sound is piquant and, I’d hazard to guess, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with her work.
Love of the earth
Claudio Abbado passed away on the 20th of January five years ago, just months before I began my Ph.D.
Super tsar
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov must be Russian’s most iconic opera and “Trove Thursday” presents it with Claudio Abbado leading an impressive team.
Come what May
At “Trove Thursday” it’s May Night, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1880 comic opera, in a recent broadcast from Moscow led by pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev.
Catch a falling tsar
You’d think by now I’d know better than to make snap judgments about an opera or a singer—but apparently not.
Woman on the verge of a repertoire breakthrough
Revive is a manifesto of sorts, declaring Elina Garanca’s intentions for the new direction in her career.
New waves
Missy Mazzoli, a 36-year-old composer from Brooklyn, has created the most startling and moving new American opera in memory.
Joys in the Attic
Taneev was quite a high-minded fellow, so it’s not altogether surprising that nothing less than Aeschylus (and the whole of his Oresteia!) would suffice as a libretto for his first and only opera.
Mist opportunity
The story is enough of a cipher to make any regie-bent director salivate.
Not quite Godunov
In the fall of 2010, director Andrei Konchalovsky and conductor Gianandrea Noseda struck up a collaboration for a new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, to be performed at Teatro Regio Torino, co-produced with Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia of Valencia and Fondazione Lirico Sinfonica Petruzzelli e Teatri di Bari.
How jolly was my jenkin
I own almost every recording of the 13 operettas Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote with W.S. Gilbert ever made. Twelve Mikados, 14 Pirates of Penzance, 10 Iolanthes, right on down the line to the rarely heard Utopia, Ltd. I was a G&S fan long before I got into opera; when I was a teenager, their operettas […]
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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!
