Somewhere in time
The current Met revival of Der Rosenkavalier, while not perfect, has much to feel joyful and excited about.
Robert Carsen
81 pieces since 2010 — at 15 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
81
pieces
15
companies
17
years
15 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Robert Carsen.
View all
Radically giddy
Verdi’s Falstaff is a brilliantly written opera: funny, with a complex ability to operate across minutely shifting registers of farce and lyricism. It needs, ideally, a production and cast capable of executing both comedy and drama, irony and sincerity—often concurrently. In its current Met revival, happily, Falstaff has everything it needs.
Love me or leaf me
Robert Carsen‘s legendary production of Eugene Onegin finally arrives in San Francisco.
Bass instinct
Günther Groissböck’s ridiculously entertaining Baron Ochs and Sir Simon Rattle’s enthralling conducting soared highest during a mostly excellent revival of Der Rosenkavalier.
Turning over an old leaf
Is there any opera that can take more of a beating while still making an impact than Eugene Onegin?
Kitchen confidential
Since 1985, from the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Hall to the Welsh National Opera visiting BAM and from Chicago Lyric to New York City Opera to the Met, I’ve never encountered a bad Falstaff—or one that didn’t astound and delight me.
The devil’s eye candy
There are shows with iconic characters, and there are shows with iconic characters playing iconic characters.
Love me or leaf me
On this day in 1997 Robert Carsen made his Met debut with a new production of Eugene Onegin.
Mit leichtem Herz und leichten Händen
Der Rosenkavalier (on Blu-ray and DVD) is from the Met HD broadcast which also happened to be the final performance of the run, becoming a true souvenir of the farewells of its two leading ladies.
The frailty of everything earthly
If everything you see is great, you are either new to opera or chronically easy to please.
Through a glass vaguely
Any production of Der Rosenkavalier that can transform the usually excruciating first half of the third act into a hilarious romp already has my vote.
Out here in the dark
This is the tenth season of the Met’s HD broadcasts, not that I would know it.
No business like snow business
Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is his masterwork and its themes of social convention and unrequited longing surely struck a deep chord in a composer who, in late 19th century Russia, was gay and had to conduct himself carefully.
He is big
Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera, is exuberantly inventive, bubbling and roiling with ideas the 79-year-old composer was too impatient to develop.