But is it an artful paradox?
It was a timeout—but maybe it was a timeout we deserved.
Philip Glass
40 pieces since 2010 — at 1 company, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
40
pieces
1
company
17
years
By company
Life is like a train
“In my music, there’s not repetition. Something is always going on.”
Something Aten!
Akhnaten, seen at the Los Angeles Opera on November 13 tells the story of the Pharaoh who abandoned traditional Egyptian polytheism.
New waves
Missy Mazzoli, a 36-year-old composer from Brooklyn, has created the most startling and moving new American opera in memory.
Monotheism mit Marianne
Philip Glass is indisputably one of the most prolific composers of the last half century, yet none of his more than 20 operas has found a place in the standard repertoire.
Glass warfare
Saturday’s Washington National Opera premiere of a new version of Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton’s Appomattox had everything going for it but the opera.
Ottoman and woman
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Anger’s aweigh
It was a night a-tingle with excitement at the Metropolitan Opera House.
When owls attack
Philip Glass’s 25th opera The Perfect American was originally commissioned for New York City Opera during the aborted regime of Gerard Mortier.
Empire records
That’s what it must have been like in 1726 London when Handel composed Alessandro for perhaps the three most famous (and expensive) singers of the day.
Back to the Beach
“Is a work an opera simply because its creators choose to call it one?”
Glass, Gandhi, Occupy: Action
As suggested in Part I of this piece, to experience Glass’s Satyagraha as a purely aesthetic experience is unfortunately to succumb to a romantic ideology promoting detached reflection on art which is wholly inapplicable to such a politically-charged opera. The idea that Gandhi’s action-oriented philosophy would be packaged and sold for the sake of passive […]
Glass, Gandhi, Occupy: Performance
That Philip Glass’s opera about Gandhi’s nonviolent civil disobedience should be revived by the Metropolitan Opera in 2011—a year marked by nonviolent revolutions and uprisings around the globe—is timely, to say the least. The most recent production of his Satyagraha (1979) was first premiered by the Met in the spring of 2008 as America stood […]
Scenes from an occupation
There were rumors all day in the usual places, on the search string: Philip Glass, Lincoln Center, OWS. The opera, though hypnotic, passed quickly, and Glass took a curtain call, got a hero’s welcome. Well, we thought, he can’t be both places at once.
Beyond the pale
“Hey the line forms, on the right dear / Now that Macheath’s back in town / You’d better lock your doors, and call the law / Because Macheath’s back in town.” So concludes Marc Blitzstein’s famous English translation of the song that opens Die Dreigroschenoper.
Opera with a whiskey back
On Friday, April 16th, American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap presented a triple bill of new works at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, including what is essentially a pastiche, a collection of songs, and a one act opera. There were highs, there were lows; there was booze and opera in the same room. I […]
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).
