Star and garters
No amount of scholarly diligence has kept Les contes d’Hoffmann from being the messiest of all standard-repertory messes.
Sonya Yoncheva
55 pieces since 2013 — in 18 roles, at 6 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
55
pieces
18
roles
6
companies
14
years
By role
Role Antonia
Role Cio-Cio San
Cavalcade of stars
Back-to-back casts in the Metropolitan Opera’s revivals of Madama Butterfly and La traviata offer ample opportunity for soprano-gazing.
Role Desdemona
Lion, tamer
At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
A whiter shade of pale
While the celebrity-studded, expensively-dressed audience gathered for the gala opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-2016 season seemed genuinely enthralled by Monday evening’s performance of Otello, it was more likely swept away by the power of Verdi’s genius than by Bartlett Sher’s puzzling, inert new production.
Role Dido
Old friends, new friends
Les Arts Florissants present two ravishing programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Role Elisabeth
C’est une vraie voix
Don Carlos returns to the Opéra National de Paris and it’s an unusually happy occasion
Back to black
When was the last time the Metropolitan Opera mounted a new production that was musically outstanding yet the direction and/or design mostly sucked?
Role Fedora
Sleek, unstoppable, electrifying
For me, Fedora is the perfect opera
Poison of interest
Following new productions of Tosca in 2017, Adriana Lecouvreur in 2018, and the Anna Netrebko-led Puccini orgy of 2019, New Year’s Eve at the Met has come to signify that verismo, as this school tends to be known, is still kicking.
Role Iolanta
Reach out in the darkness
Iolanta was crowned on Thursday evening by Sonya Yoncheva’s haunting portrayal of the blind title character.
Role Iris
When the sun comes out
This year as part of Bard’s “Puccini and His World” festival audiences may witness the resurrection of Mascagni’s distinctly odd Iris.
Role Liza
Many happy returns
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
Role Luisa
Cabal me by your name
It’s fortunate that the Met’s production of Luisa Miller featured the incomparable Piotr Beczala in the role of Rodolfo.
Role Maddalena
To be a poet is a condition
Are today’s stars enough to sustain Andrea Chénier?
Role Medea
Season of the Witch
Trove Thursday offers a pair of live broadcasts of Médée featuring two compelling mid-20th century divas—Inge Borkh in German and Eileen Farrell in Italian.
Role Mimì
Technical difficulties
La bohéme returned to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera once again last night (does it ever leave?)
Fifty shades of gold
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
Snow business
Every year I say I’m not going to another La Bohème because I’ve seen this too many times.
Role Norma
Diva moment
Angela Meade, reportedly flown in at the very last minute to take on the role of Norma, absolutely triumphed, pulling out all the stops to deliver a commanding performance that should, indeed, go down in history.
Zero gravitas
On the train ride home I was thinking that I don’t want to see or hear Norma ever again.
Role Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta, Stella
Contes stop the music
Trove Thursday wades into the murky musicological waters of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann..
Role Tosca
Duet to me one more time
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Playing the diva vs. being the diva
In the last weeks of January, as the Metropolitan Opera season wound to a close (prior to the winter hiatus) two striking sopranos were thrust into the limelight.
“Tosca,” starring the Philadelphia Orchestra
Though orchestrally lavish, this “semi-staging” delivers less theater than no staging at all.
Safe passage
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
Bringing up Bondy
The more ignorant segments of the public and the critical establishment continue to shout praise to David McVicar‘s torpid Tosca as the greatest triumph of the reactionary since the Bourbon Restoration.
E avanti a lui russava tutta Roma
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
Role Violetta
Three faces of Violetta
Christopher Corwin surveys the three Traviata casts — led by Lisette Oropesa, Rosa Feola, and Ermonela Jaho — at the Met this spring.
Wish upon a star
At what moment does a “rising star” become simply a “star”?
Role Violetta Valéry
Plummeting in love
The Met’s current production of Verdi’s La Traviata is something of a mixed bag.
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!
