A joint Beethoven–Adams program conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk suggests a way forward for the embattled Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Brendan Latimer hitches a ride with members of the “site-responsive opera” movement who are taking their shows out of the opera house — and out of the box.
A uniformly strong cast triumphs over a dull production of Don Carlo at the Dallas Opera.
Ahead of their opening in Don Carlo in Dallas tonight, Christopher Corwin chats with Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis — and offers a special edition of Chris’s Cache!
The women were the highlights of Washington National Opera’s militaristic Aïda
Brendan Latimer sits down with Francesca Zambello and members of the cast of Washington National Opera’s production of Aïda to discuss the complicated legacy of one of Verdi’s most beloved works and the tricky business of “inventing the truth.”
Elina Garanca is back at the Met for the first time since 2020 — her Amneris is, in a word, sensational.
By the time the curtain rose on Verdi’s Luisa Miller last Sunday in Washington Concert Opera’s final show of the season, the originally announced line-up was about as accurate as a federal agency org chart from February.
I had been hopeful that 2024 would end, if not on a high note, then one that was at least in tune.
With Boston Lyric Opera’s largest opera production of the season already well behind us, the one-off semi-staged gala performance of Aïda held on Sunday at Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre to support the company’s vast education and community engagement apparatus, was a particularly enticing entry on the Boston cultural calendar.
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.
Judith Malafronte sits down with bass David Leigh who debuts as Rocco in Washington National Opera’s production of Fidelio next week
You probably won’t leave Idomeneo ready to burst out in song, but what the opera lacks in melodic immediacy it makes up for in sheer virtuosity.
Chopping up the action and dutifully showing each plot point may work in a film but in an opera, where every piece of marginal dialogue must be set to music, it feels like a chore.
Out of sheer morbid curiosity last evening I pulled up the “orders” page of my Amazon account and searched Otello to discover that over the past 11 years. I’ve ordered 15 items with that title (one as recently as last night!)
Stefan Vinke brings to Tristan an indefatigable heldentenor of sturdy, muscular brilliance and a physical intensity that allowed him to fearlessly traverse this complex character’s broad emotional compass.
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.
Let’s all cast our minds back to March of 2020. Or, better, let’s not.
Concerts at Wolf Trap, mixed bags in more ways than one, provided fleeting glimpses of the old normal as moments of frisson mingled with more familiar monotony.
When LA Opera finally decided to put a toe in the water and mount its first production since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was Igor Stravinsky‘s opera/oratorio Oedipus Rex.
If Sunday’s performance of Magic Flute at the Met demonstrated one thing, it is that opera targeted at children must be just as good as (if not better than) opera targeted at adults.
Heretofore I’d avoided the Met’s abridged, English-language holiday presentations.
I hardly know where to heap my praise first.
For opening night of the new LA Opera season Placido Domingo decided to return to one of his best Verdi showcases, Don Carlo, only this time as the baritone, Rodrigo the Marquis di Posa, instead of the title character.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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