Bloodless revolution
Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung at Canadian Opera Company deliver on fine performances even if Robert Lepage‘s production skimps on horror.
Robert Lepage
34 pieces since 2008 — at 2 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
34
pieces
2
companies
19
years
By company
A specter, haunting
Kaija Saariaho’s spectral, shattering Innocence makes its Metropolitan Opera debut.
Scarcity mindset
Michael Thalmeier‘s Tristan und Isolde in Berlin asks, how much minimalism is too much minimalism?
Keeper of the flame
Elina Garanca’s glorious Marguerite transformed La Damnation de Faust into the Met’s first essential must-see of the year.
Something With a ‘Ring’ to It
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
The end is the beginning of the end
At the Metropolitan Opera’s Götterdämmerung on Saturday afternoon, the fires which consumed the Gods burned lukewarm.
Teenager in love
Stefan Vinke’s Siegfried was not so much brawny and terrestrial, but heady and mercurial
Oh my goddess!
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
Domino theory
The Metropolitan Opera delivers on the promise of Wagner’s Gesamtkunswerk in a revival of Robert Lepage’s Ring.
Once in love with Amy
“Trove Thursday” leaps to the end of the cycle with a slightly abridged Götterdämmerung featuring Amy Shuard as Brünnhilde.
Just add magic
Heretofore I’d avoided the Met’s abridged, English-language holiday presentations.
Abendstern
“Trove Thursday” celebrates the thrilling Finnish soprano Karita Matilla in the ultimate diva role.
The leggy movie
This Met’s second production of Berg’s 1935 opera was the hot topic of November 2015.
There arose such a clatter
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
Chanson d’amour
Much like Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which launched the Met’s 2016-2017 season, Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin is an opera about love and death.
Trauermarsch
I can scarcely remember a performance where so many conflicting thoughts raced through my mind as happened Thursday night during the Met Orchestra’s “bleeding chunks” of Wagner’s Ring at Carnegie Hall.
For the birds
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Ice storm
Two months after my last visit to this season’s sixteen-performance run of Puccini’s Turandot, I returned eager to witness the latest chapter in the sporadic Met career of Nina Stemme. Rising stars Anita Hartig and Alexander Tsymbalyuk also appeared in their roles for the first time at the Met, so Monday evening turned into a […]
Enigma variation
On Thursday evening Jennifer Wilson “finally” made a belated, disappointing Met debut as Turandot.
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.
The Met: Can it be saved?
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
No one who speaks German could be an evil man
If Frank Castorf‘s work on Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth accomplishes nothing else, it should serve as a sort of loud disorganized reminder of the dangers of indulging in the intentional fallacy.
Requiem for a dream
Last night, La Cieca finally got around to watching that documentary about the rocky road to the new Ring at the Met, and she has a thought or two about this whole brouhaha.
Def Man Glance
Since 2010 I’ve been reading nothing but horror being heaped upon the Met’s new Ring. It’s been like a cross between a cruise ship size buffet spread of internet snarking and a slasher film re-cast with music critics.