Prophète bien aimé
New Amsterdam Opera specializes in American singers whose abilities are as yet little known.
East Coast
Something With a ‘Ring’ to It
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
Riding on empty
Two atmospheric but bleak works provide a musical illustration of the notion that misery loves company.
Like a prayer
It was quite a pleasure—a privilege, really—to see John Dexter’s legendary production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
Sunday will never be the same
“Trove Thursday” presents two live versions of Sunday in the Park with George.
Into the wooed
We are the elusive, the mysterious, the ever-courted Millennial Audience, Mr. Darcy to the marketing department’s Mrs. Bennet.
The end is the beginning of the end
At the Metropolitan Opera’s Götterdämmerung on Saturday afternoon, the fires which consumed the Gods burned lukewarm.
Pigment of the imagination
It’s a wonderful idea to cast Bohème with young singers, and these delivered astonishingly assured, confident, mature performances.
“The richest food that money can buy”
All about the life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, but depicted as an opera performed as a dress rehearsal for an opera.
Jest you, jest me
Friday night’s Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera revealed once again a predictable dissonance between the performances on stage and Michael Mayer’s production.
Nostalgia for places one has never seen
“Trove Thursday” turns to Jacopo Foroni’s rare 1849 historical melodrama Cristina, Regina di Svezia to commemorate the 330th anniversary tomorrow of that enigmatic monarch’s death.
Der Meisterdirigent
Christian Thielemann is widely regarded as our time’s preeminent master of the Austro-German symphonic ensemble.
Teenager in love
Stefan Vinke’s Siegfried was not so much brawny and terrestrial, but heady and mercurial
Handsomely done
Peter Mattei, one of my two favorite baritones these days, in an unexpected title role, Britten’s Billy Budd.
A Lesbian in distress
Zelmira, a work of 1822, was the last of the eight operas Rossini composed for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, then the largest opera house in Italy—perhaps in Europe.
The harsh untruth of the camera eye
Ivo van Hove really seems to be everywhere lately.
The damned don’t cry
Michael Mayer‘s production of La traviata at the Met is so timid, so devoid of insight, so cynically pandering and gaudy that I hardly feel like it even matters what I think of the performances of the current cast.
Strangers in the night
One needs liberty in order to be a libertine.
Gladiator tidings
The finals on Sunday seemed a bit like the modern-day operatic equivalent of the Roman colosseum.
Why so seria?
At the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, Mozart’s opera never sounded fresher, a superstar cast shining new light on one of the composer’s all-too-seldom-performed scores.
Out of the shadows
“Trove Thursday” offers Die Frau ohne Schatten conducted by Georg Solti and also featuring Regina Resnik, Donald McIntyre and the inevitable James King.
Oh my goddess!
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
Still crazy after all these years
A return to Amore Opera’s production of Meyerbeer’s Dinorah to hear the second cast underlined two conclusions.
The quality of mercy
“Trove Thursday” offers Mozart’s late opera seria in a Paris “pirate” featuring the high-voltage diva-duo of Anna Caterina Antonacci and Elina Garanca.
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).