At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
The long evening didn’t achieve the degree of celebration it should have.
At one point I spent a couple of months on the dole and dollar record shopping had a number of obvious virtues as a pastime.
Four fine Handel-centric concerts from the Morgan Library to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center proved a bracing antidote to pervasive Messiah-mania.
L’Arlesiana in a vibrant live performance from a dozen years ago with Giuseppe Filianoti, Latonia Moore and Marianne Cornetti.
It had something for everyone who loves loud chesty singing and smoky soft-singing: from Tchaikovsky to Rachmaninoff to Strauss…
At the opening of the Scottish Opera’s 2017 production of Turnage’s opera Greek, I was very sorry I’d missed Anna Nicole.
I wondered if there truly is a future for opera other than as an overpriced museum piece for an aging audience who likes their sets lavish, their productions non-challenging, and their singers telegenic.
Diana Damrau‘s performance as Violetta was the work of a very ordinary artist, one susceptible to vocal flubs, poor intonation, and an all too banal approach operatic performance.
Anna Netrebko sang throughout with a palpable sense of joy and ease in vocal production, never a hint of strain or any moment forced.
Tuesday the Met unveils its sixth new production of La Traviata since moving to Lincoln Center.
The proceedings took the virtue of longevity too much to heart; the night stretched on interminably.
Give the creators credit for producing an emotional response.
Sunday’s sold out Carnegie Hall recital became a veritable love-fest between the Peruvian tenor and those assembled in the Hall.
Washington Concert Opera on the occasion of Gounod’s 200th birthday presented the American premiere of his first opera, Sapho.
On this day in 1967 Herbert von Karajan first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera conducting and directing Die Walküre.
Patrice Chéreau‘s Elektra brims with ideas beyond its eschewing of the opera’s standard, hysterical trappings.
Alexander Birch Elliott‘ s dynamic if gauche Zurga added some pizzazz to an otherwise bland evening.
Saturday night I navigated the Music Center concourse, or what’s left of it with it’s seemingly eternal construction to the main plaza, wending my way to the Dorothy Chandler for the opening night of LA Opera’s Hansel and Gretel.
The Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho is surely the reason that Covent Garden has made a commercial release of this “Live to Cinemas” relay from March of 2017.
“The heavens are telling” begins the famous chorus that ends the first section of The Creation.
This was not a performance as gimmick.
There are shows with iconic characters, and there are shows with iconic characters playing iconic characters.
Too bad, then, that this season’s tossed flower was a bit of a wilted one.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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