Venetian blinding
West Bay Opera’s Otello punches well above its weight
Richard Strauss
180 pieces since 2006.
180
pieces
21
years
Up stares, down stares
Ahead of tomorrow’s Live in HD, Michael Steinberg talks Leonore, Salome, and the “endemic misogyny” of Claus Guth‘s new production
Die Sterne des Himmels werden zur Erde fallen
Chris’s Cache highlights the erstwhile Chicago Symphony Orchestra @ Carnegie series with not one but two starry operas conducted by Georg Solti: Salome with Birgit Nilsson and a performance of Moses und Aron
The unkindest Kind
Madison Schindele on loving Die Frau ohne Schatten as a “woman of childbearing age”
Selvaggia e aspra e forte
Pascal Dusapin‘s dynamic and demanding traversal of Dante‘s Commedia arrives at the Paris Opera
Beyond redemption
This performance of Mahler’s Symphony N°8 at the Bozar in Brussels will probably be my last ever Mahler concert.
Look to the western sky
Not even howling winds and thunderous rain could dampen the excitement of Bay Area audiences to experience Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen for the first time in the Bay Area at Zellerbach Hall Berkeley last Tuesday, 4 February.
Countering expectations
Apologies in advance to Key’mon Murrah, whose rather extraordinary Marian Anderson award recital with pianist Brian Zeger at the Kennedy Center on December 17 demands some general musing.
Milling around
On Tuesday night, in the commodious concert hall of the Morgan Library, the Boston Early Music Festival forces brought Georg Philipp Telemann’s Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho to New York.
Trick mirror
A recent conversation with a friend who has loved Die Frau ohne Schatten for twice as long as I have been alive revealed that we both had some unresolved questions about the plot.
Macabre fascination
Can György Ligeti‘s only opera be understood as the composer’s own grappling with trauma, death, and memory of a past life?
The eras tour
She can’t put her foot on the gas the way she used to but there’s still plenty of fuel in that tank.
Flower maiden
Erin Morley closed Vocal Arts DC’s season on May 13th with a recital in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, partnered by pianist Gerald Martin Moore.
With a sound but half its own
Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann made her New York recital debut at Weill Hall on May 8.
“I just sing whatever I can get my throat around”
Rachel Willis-Sørensen might be the greatest American soprano right now who doesn’t sing much in America.
Decadent genealogies
Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot are, in their different ways, the final decadent flowering of a musical tradition at its twilight.
Distinctive and unreservedly commendable
My sole live encounter with Seiji Ozawa coincided with his final appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, where he conducted its 2008 revival of Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama.
Singin’ through the sunshine
Julia Bullock seems to fission herself multiple times over during the course of her newest, widely ranging recital program.
Think different
Bay Area composer Mason Bates’s and librettist Mark Campbell’s contemporary opera about the life of the tech mogul Steve Jobs came home “to the place where it all began” in spectacular fashion
White hot
The great archetypal image of an opera singer is a towering Wagnerian soprano who shatters entire panes of glass the moment she opens her mouth.
Glorious excess
Despite the ever-increasing media coverage of San Francisco’s “doom loop,” June 2023 will be forever remembered as the time where San Francisco was the opera capital of the United States.
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Tonight’s chat is late (10:00 PM EDT / 7:00 PM PDT) and based on a pay-per-view event, but….
I shall be released
Welcome, beloveds, to the Jessye Norman Memorial Museum. I’ll be the docent for your tour today.
Somewhere in time
The current Met revival of Der Rosenkavalier, while not perfect, has much to feel joyful and excited about.
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!
