Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
The fact that Barbara Hannigan has never performed at The Metropolitan Opera is just plain dumb.
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
“Even Peter Gelb’s critics concede that he has had a long run of finding pots of gold,” says The New York Times of the Metropolitan Opera‘s dire money troubles. “But is he running out of rainbows?”
Caitlin Vincent‘s new book Opera Wars paints a persuasive picture of the problems facing opera today, though her solutions leave something to be desired.
A high-drama Vanessa by the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers something to believe in.
Daniele Rustioni, who starts his tenure as Met Principal Guest Conductor with Don Giovanni this week, might just be the opera conductor we’ve all been waiting for — and he’s betting on a long haul.
Rolando Villazón opens up about his production of La sonnambula, how he develops characters, and what makes opera dance.
The moral stench seeps through Peter Gelb‘s decision to partner with the Saudi government, but what new sources of funding for the Met don’t have red flags?
Richard Lynn bravely asks what we’re hoping to get out of the continued Peter Gelb-bashing — and whether our expectations of him have ever been fair
Elina Garanca is back at the Met for the first time since 2020 — her Amneris is, in a word, sensational.
BAM is back!
John Yohalem reports from the New York Dramatic Voices performance of Act III of Die Walküre
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
I had been hopeful that 2024 would end, if not on a high note, then one that was at least in tune.
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Two opera houses, both alike in dignity (but less so in resources and international fame) launched their seasons this week, making similar out-of-the-box choices: new works on edgy, contemporary themes.
Les Contes d’Hoffmann is something of a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and others been altered to fit since Offenbach died before he could complete and revise the work.
In its first go-around in November 2022, Kevin Puts’s The Hours (libretto by Greg Pierce based on the novel by Michael Cunningham and the screenplay for the Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film was a box office bullseye for the Metropolitan Opera.
From a musical perspective, the evening came together admirably. As a work of theater, though, it was as stale as last week’s takeout.
In any case, we probably got as good a Tannhäuser cast as could be assembled these days.
When our friends at Naxos and C Major announced near-dueling releases of Puccini’s “shabby little shocker,” I was ready with my critic’s pen dipped in bile.
On June 20, a rather breezy, pleasant cool summer evening, the soprano Gabriella Reyes, tenor René Barbera and baritone Will Liverman took over the Summerstage space with a wide-ranging, ambitious recital program with Dimitri Dover tickling the ivories.
This Holländer offers neither a clear narrative vision for the work nor a sense of turbocharged drama; it simply sits on the Met’s cavernous stage as a dull gray mass.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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