Composer Philip Venables talks about queer utopias and bending gender and genre in The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions which opens at the Park Avenue Armory this week.
James Gaffigan, the incoming Music Director of Houston Grand Opera, strikes a balance between New World precision and Old World flair in repertoire, staging, and wine
The score for Innocence was menacing yet comforting, and, essentially, violent and peaceful at the same time
When our friends at Naxos and C Major announced near-dueling releases of Puccini’s “shabby little shocker,” I was ready with my critic’s pen dipped in bile.
Monteverdi’s late Homeric masterpiece Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria isn’t often performed in the United States.
The always elegant Véronique Gens has recently returned often to her earliest roots in the French baroque.
In spite of the fact that Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti removed all the magical elements from the story, therefore making it far easier to produce, there was more than enough enchantment in the singing, and intermittently in the production to enjoy.
“Once upon a time / Lived a foolish king. / Mocking Death, his crime, / Pure chaos he bring.”
Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s 1935 “folk” opera, graced the stage of Dutch National Opera for the first time last month, and it was resounding success from start to finish.
The “Red Priest” of Venice once made reference to his “94 operas” in a letter to his patron.
Only the Sound Remains introduced Americans to the latest collaboration between dazzling Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and hirsute metteur-en-scène Peter Sellars.
Beautiful singing, thoughtful staging, lovely melodies… a perfect escape from daily life.
Why do we go to the opera? Because the world needs a reminder of the power of forgiveness, particularly in these dark and gloomy times!
Even those of us who consider Guillaume Tell Rossini’s greatest opera understand why it has not been his most frequently staged.
“Trove Thursday” steps in with one of René Jacobs’s favorite and rarest rediscoveries, Francesco Conti’s marvelous Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena from 1719.
A confession: I have a real love/ hate relationship with Mozart’s Die Zauberflote.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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