Songs of innocence
Blind Injustice is a masterpiece, brilliant theater.
East Coast
Sweeping down the plains
Within minutes, something wonderful happened. None of my reservations mattered.
She’s a stranger here herself
The four leading roles in La Straniera were all attractively cast by Teatro Nuovo with fresh, promising young voices that did not seem quite ready for the big time.
Anna one, Anna two
Trove Thursday offers Bellini’s La Sonnambula with Anna Moffo (San Francisco 1960) and Anna Netrebko (Vienna 2006).
Berlin wall
Why did I mostly want to close my eyes and just listen?
There is no spoon
Can a work with indisputably great music fail to add up to a successful opera? I puzzled over that Sunday during Teatro Nuovo’s essential concert staging of Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra at SUNY Purchase.
To live and die in L.A.
Trove Thursday presents a double dose of the Verdi Messa da Requiem performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
I had too much to dream last night
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
Drama is real
Teatro Nuovo put on a perfectly delightful show on Thursday night.
Nixon in Jersey: The Renixoning
The singers and the orchestra carry the show, but where do they carry it?
Bolder sister
Brigitte Fassbaender‘s sound is piquant and, I’d hazard to guess, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with her work.
Under the silver lake
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” went the introduction to the 1940s radio program The Shadow, an apt description for the San Francisco Opera’s production of Rusalka.
È la solita storia del tenore
While Luciano Pavarotti may have brought opera to the people, once he realized how lucrative it could be, there was a string of promoters who helped him turn all that adoration into cold hard cash.
Band in Boston
In the triumphant American premiere of Orlando Generoso at the Boston Early Music Festival last week, the hippogriff was among the many stars of the show.
Something cool
Elina Garanca was radiantly present at Carnegie Hall Friday night performing a ravishingly somber Rückert-Lieder with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the MET Orchestra.
Mr. Fabulous
Michael Fabiano is a boss. This is a fact.
Welcome Bach
An unusually provocative program by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Bernard Labadie with soloists Lydia Teuscher and Benno Schachtner made my “return” Thursday evening an illuminating and rewarding experience at Zankel Hall.
Nice nice baby
“Tame” seemed to be the appropriate adjective to describe San Francisco Opera’s Carmen.
Pardon my dust
David Lang’s Prisoner of the State, which was premiered on Thursday night by the New York Philharmonic, places the issue of mass incarceration front and center, foregrounding the violence of the prison system, both physical and psychological.
“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up”
Tosca, as it exists now, can’t be real, spontaneous drama-it’s just Camp.
All I mask of you
Amore Opera, an old-fashioned, adventurous little company that performs ambitious and sometimes delectably obscure but worthy repertory at the Riverside Theatre, is now (through Sunday) presenting Un ballo in maschera.
She’s a rebel, she’s a saint
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
Star-crossed
For more than 40 years, the magnificent opening image from Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites has served as an icon for the Met.
Can’t get you out of my head
Today the good guy finally gets his chance with San Giovanni Battista by Alessandro Stradella featuring Christophe Dumaux as John the Baptist.
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).