Crate expectations
Not a few eyebrows arched on social media when L.A. Opera appropriated the hashtag “Fight like a girl” on street level poster adverts all over town for the revival of their 2013 production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.
Nicholas Brownlee
16 pieces since 2015 — in 9 roles, at 9 companies, most often at LA Opera.
16
pieces
9
roles
9
companies
12
years
By role
Role Angelotti
Role Bonze
To live and die (with honor) in L.A.
Los Angeles first saw Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly presented at the Mason Opera House downtown in 1908 by the English Grand Opera Company. Rumors that LA Opera Artistic Director Placido Domingo portrayed Cio-Cio San’s little boy in that production remain unsubstantiated.
Role Colline
If I had a photograph of you
I’m certain I wasn’t the only one thrilled to bits to see LA Opera’s production of La Bohème finally retired after 26 years and seven mountings.
Snow business
Los Angeles saw the first U.S. performance of Giacomo Puccini’s snow-dusted weeper in 1897 just a year after the young Toscanini led the prima in Turin.
Role Donner
This is what trauma looks like
Valentin Schwarz‘s and Simone Young‘s Ring, in its final outing at Bayreuth, is dramaturgically messy and musically excellent.
Role First Soldier
Mourning glory
I can think of no other role that provides the most unique promise of humiliation, and consequently the most opportunity for glory.
Role Jochanaan
The snows that lie on the mountains of Judaea
Salome sweeps in like a storm at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Role Nourabad
Diver gent
Georges Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles has been knocking steadily at the door of the standard repertoire now in this country for quite some time.
Role the Porter
Strangers when we meet
The aphorisms projected before each act of Das Wunder der Heliane suggested the work concerns the transformative power of love—but does it really?
Role Wotan
Beyond the valley of the gods
The Bayerische Staatsoper’s Ring cycle scores another triumph with Tobias Kratzer’s take on Die Walküre.
The best thing I saw this year was Das Rheingold
Tobias Kratzer‘s production of Das Rheingold at the Bayerische Staatsoper was a resounding success.
Get in the zone
Tamara Wilson and Stanislas de Barbeyrac are the standouts in Calixto Bieito’s underwhelming Die Walküre in Paris
Gonna build a heaven from a little hell
Tobias Kratzer‘s Das Rheingold in Munich kicks off a Ring for the post-secular age
God grief
Nigel Wilkinson takes on the first installment of the Paris Opera’s new Calixto Bieito-directed Ring Cycle
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!
