Maximalism was on the menu last weekend at the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The Metropolitan Opera chose the early August operatic doldrums in NYC to announce the renewal of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s contract as music director through the 2029-30 season.
Pelléas and Mélisande are not transparent to themselves. Which means: they each have an unconscious.
She can’t put her foot on the gas the way she used to but there’s still plenty of fuel in that tank.
I’m old enough to remember when Yannick Nézet-Séguin could do no wrong.
On June 11th, the Met Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall with a diverse program led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Opera took center stage on the final weekend of the Philadelphia Orchestra season.
In its first go-around in November 2022, Kevin Puts’s The Hours (libretto by Greg Pierce based on the novel by Michael Cunningham and the screenplay for the Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film was a box office bullseye for the Metropolitan Opera.
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
La forza del destino concluded its run at the Metropolitan Opera with a significant cast change.
It’s not hard not to feel jaded about Romeo and Juliet.
While you may need to bring along your Dramamine, the Met’s new production of La forza del destino, does—eventually—spin fast enough to achieve escape velocity.
How many hours of our lives are spent looking back?
It says something about Boston’s opera scene that one of the most consistently ambitious events of the opera season is a one-off performance played by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
When the Staatskapelle Berlin announced a two-night engagement at Carnegie Hall performing all four Brahms symphonies, I immediately made a note in my calendar to attend. I also wondered who would be the conductor when the announced Daniel Barenboim inevitably withdrew.
In any case, we probably got as good a Tannhäuser cast as could be assembled these days.
Chris’s Cache wraps up November with Régine Crespin’s Chicago Leonore; two rare Met Fidelios headed by Christa Ludwig and Hildegard Behrens; and a concert performance with Birgit Nilsson led by Leonard Bernstein, plus a final twist: excerpts of Carol Vaness in Leonore.
In its Met premier, neither a talented cast nor some beautiful musical moments were enough to make Florencia feel new or vital.
One got a sense that the Met and the maestro directed most of the rehearsal and preparation toward the opening night premiere of the Heggie opus
“None of that sentimental crap, okay?”
To paraphrase Terence Blanchard’s Champion, what makes an opera an opera?
Here’s an update for those keeping up with the Lohengrin casting sweepstakes at the Met.
It seems that François Girard has been watching a little too much Star Wars lately. His new production of Lohengrin, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera Sunday afternoon, reduced Wagner’s opera to a knockoff space opera, full of hackneyed sci-fi tropes and B-rated futurist apologue.
Perhaps the quirkiest of Mahler’s nine symphonies, the Fourth fits nicely with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s somewhat idiosyncratic style.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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