Aryeh ready for a miracle?
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen shows that he’s at the top of a crowded pack of countertenors in two recent New York performances with Philharmonia Baroque.
R.B. Schlather
19 pieces since 2014 — at 9 companies, most often at Hudson Hall.
19
pieces
9
companies
13
years
High and dry
Ilana Walder-Biesanz reports from The Santa Fe Opera, where Tobias Picker‘s latest opera falls short, a new Rodelinda scintillates, and sumptuous singing abounds across the entire repertoire.
Less is more
Vanessa is spare and compelling in Heartbeat Opera’s production.
Lucky those people who are so anxious to believe
A high-drama Vanessa by the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers something to believe in.
Shadows of a doubt
R.B. Schlather‘s shadowy production with Heartbeat Opera at the Williamstown Theatre Festival proves that Vanessa might be coming into its own at last
Lombarding along
In Handel’s Rodelinda, a usurped monarch, believed dead, returns to avenge his deposition and reclaim the woman he loves.
If they could turn back time
Yuval Sharon at Boston Lyric Opera has brilliantly found an interpretative middle ground for La bohème by presenting the acts in reverse order.
Shoot your shot
Director R.B. Schlather deftly walks a porous boundary, casting this primordial paroxysm of Germanness as a dialogue between its naïve and moralistic narrative with its outsized legacy.
‘Così,’ cheap ‘n cheerful
In 2022, making Così fan tutte intimate is not a radical act. Making it enjoyable, however, is.
Riddle me this
Turandot finally arrives on Trove Thursday, but it’s the setting by Ferruccio Busoni which predates by a decade the one by that other Italian guy, and it’s paired today with Arlecchino, the composer’s other commedia dell’arte-influenced short opera.
They love a piano
It’s difficult to reconcile what Schlather writes with what we see onstage, which is a jumble not only of pianos, but of periods and concepts.
Cave dwellers
Composer/librettist David Hertzberg’s The Rose Elf, which gave its world premiere in the Green-Wood Cemetery Catacombs last weekend, is indeed a marvel of elfin proportions.
Change the world – I want to get off
A dozen women or more talk and sing about all sort of important and exciting things, with “a man” near the bottom of their list of priorities.
But is it an artful paradox?
It was a timeout—but maybe it was a timeout we deserved.
Mitigated Gaul
Kevin Newbury‘s familiar production of Bellini’s Norma with its most frequent leading lady, the American Sondra Radvanovsky.
Manhattan melodrama
Curtis Opera Theater mounted a musically remarkable account of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic on March 2.
Al fresco
Poor Paisiello. Out of the nearly 100 operas written by this industrious composer just one was generally regarded as a masterpiece.
Notes from the underground
Director R.B. Schlather and his team explored Handel’s Orlando and the results, as seen at Monday night’s final presentation, proved uncommonly stimulating.
About last night
For those who like their Handel loud, with no forfeit of baroque finesse, one promising solution is to make the hall smaller.
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).