This black-box recital was an aggressively Gallic affair
“Trove Thursday” celebrates the thrilling Finnish soprano Karita Matilla in the ultimate diva role.
Can a surfeit of pleasure become—in the end—unsatisfying?
“Trove Thursday” provides a live broadcast of Mozart’s rarely performed cantata Davide Penitente by Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie.
I reckon marketing a sex-themed opera in Brooklyn should be like selling bacon-flavored froyo in Vermont.
anatomy theater, receiving its New York premiere Saturday night at this year’s Prototype Festival, is a conceptual exercise in which nothing, absolutely nothing is left to the imagination.
Idomeneo proved enormously moving while a much more complicated Così fan Tutte went for shallow romantic hijinks stripping that work of its darkly ambiguous disturbing view of love.
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
Sunday afternoon’s all-Richard Strauss concert served as a de facto commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the debut of Renée Fleming, long one of the house’s biggest stars.
I was, to my astonishment, quite bored.
“Trove Thursday” continues its mini Shakespeare festival with a delightful performance by the New York City Opera of Die Lüstigen Weiber von Windsor.
Jean-Philippe Rameau was nearly 80 when he composed his final masterpiece Les Boréades, but it had to wait over 200 years to reach the stage.
Since its founding 20 years ago, Washington, DC-based Opera Lafayette has devoted its considerable imagination and energy to reviving lesser-known 17th and 18th century French operas.
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants made a much-anticipated appearance at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival Saturday performing Theodora.
Many large opera companies these days host valuable young artist programs dedicated to helping singers negotiate the difficult transition between leaving the conservatory and becoming full-time performing artists.
The advance publicity about Zhang Huan’s production of Handel’s luscious Semele currently having its US premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music prominently featured a provocative claim.
At what moment does a “rising star” become simply a “star”?
The visit of the Mariinsky Theater’s resident company to the glittering opera house of the Brooklyn Academy of Music consists of three ballet programs with starry casts preceded, last night, by a single performance of Rodion Shchedrin’s opera, The Enchanted Wanderer.
2014 was a year of lemons into lemonade.
His shaved head in striking contrast to his dark beard and glinting eyes, the implacable Tartar conqueror glowers at us from the CD cover, while the uncropped photo of countertenor Xavier Sabata (above) is even more disturbing, featuring his raised fist and forearm tightly wrapped in a leather belt.
Passion propels more operas than almost any other human emotion; however, many musical dramas have a very different sort of passion—the final days of Jesus—as their subject.
After listening to “Stella di Napoli,” her mightily impressive new CD
of rare bel canto arias just released by Erato, I felt many of the old sparks reigniting.
In recent years the enterprising Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble has brightened the usually arid weeks of August in New York City with some worthy operatic showcases for young singers.
What must have raced through the mind of the none-too-comely Spanish Infanta when she learned that the opera to be performed during the celebrations for her 1745 wedding to the French Dauphin revolved around the comeuppance of an ugly yet vain water nymph tricked into believing Jupiter was her ardent suitor?
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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