An instrument of your peace
Philippe Sly is sublime as Messiaen’s Saint François D’Assise in Salzburg, though Romeo Castellucci‘s production could brush up on its catechism.
Russell Braun
6 pieces since 2011 — in 6 roles, at 4 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
6
pieces
6
roles
4
companies
16
years
Role Frère Léon
Role Jaufré Rudel
Chanson d’amour
Soprano Erin Wall died in early October, a month shy of her 45th birthday; Trove Thursday remembers her with a 2012 broadcast of Kaija Saariaho’s shimmering L’Amour de Loin.
Role Mandryka
Let’s do the time warp again
Tobias Kratzer‘s time-traveling Arabella from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, now available on DVD, turns the opera’s problems into its strengths.
Role Olivier
If I only had a harp
Capriccio skates along on a fine line between a fascinating idea-driven debate about the purpose of art in the wider world and a rather fussy narrow debate about text and music interesting only to those interested in opera as theatre.
Role Riel
The Riel thing
By virtue of its subject matter and the auspicious occasion of its commissioning, Louis Riel was destined to be iconic.
Role Valentin
Experiment in error
It is, as Noel Coward remarked, astonishing how potent cheap music is. According to Brockway and Weinstock’s World of Opera, Gounod’s Faust was performed, after a rather lackluster debut in 1859, a thousand times inParis at the Opera between 1869 and 1894—a gobsmacking average of once every nine days.
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).
