Golden ‘Girls’ season finale
The conclusion of our Fanciulla del West video overview in three parts looks at a trio of performances from the 2010s.
Nikolaus Lehnhoff
11 pieces since 2010.
11
pieces
17
years
Minnie happy returns
Puccini’s Girl closes out the 20th century and gallops into the 21st.
“Something great in itself”
Now we have considered the three “winners” in the Tristan competition, let’s turn to the also-rans, or, to be more optimistic, the runners up.
One night of love
Your alte Jungfer’s requisite Kuschelkatze (pictured) arrived on my doorstep in Mariahilf with the name of Tristan.
Not only with words, but with lively gestures
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
Embroidered silk
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Between two worlds
If works like Salome and Erwartung defined modernism in the first decades of the 20th century, Die Tote Stadt and Palestrina represented the regressive avant garde.
Rodent show
This Hans Neuenfels staging for the Bayreuth Festival caused quite a stir at its 2010 premiere, but now, with time and distance, how radical is the production?
Immortal beloved
Janácek’s Makropulos Case has only chalked up thirteen performances in three previous runs at the Met and will have just five more this season. Try to catch at least one.
Fresh, direct
Directors love directing Wagner, or rather, they love directing their versions of Wagner. They don’t seem to like the operas very much. We all know what we’re going to see if we travel to Bayreuth or Berlin or Stuttgart for an evening: the regietheater world of concept grafted over concept grafted over concept with the […]
The boys in the back room
“The American Way of Life, lightly satirized, lies at the heart of our production: it is an adventure that takes place somewhere between Wall Street and Hollywood.” Nikolaus Lehnhoff, as can be surmised from these liner notes, makes full use of stereotypically “American” imagery throughout his production of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West: Wall Street […]
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!
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).
