Avec la victoire, l’instant du bonheur
Buoyed by a strong cast, The Metropolitan Opera continues its autumn bel canto streak with a winning revival of Donizetti’s La fille du regiment.
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
36 pieces since 2010 — at 1 company, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
36
pieces
1
company
17
years
Sweet birds of youth
Buoyed by a cast of emerging stars, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia asserted a key trait of this ubiquitous buffo: it is a young person’s opera.
Semper Fidelio
Fidelio, which opened last week at the Metropolitan Opera, will always be relevant, I fear.
It may not have been echt, but it was fun!
On June 11th, the Met Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall with a diverse program led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
On the road again
When it premiered at the Opéra Comique in 1875, Carmen shocked audiences with its frank depictions of female sexuality, the proletariat, and violence: subjects that have ensured the piece’s continued relevance and that have inspired numerous retellings and revisions.
Brazilian brass lift
The past seems to be in conversation with the present.
A fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes
It’s not hard not to feel jaded about Romeo and Juliet.
Tremens factus sum ego
One got a sense that the Met and the maestro directed most of the rehearsal and preparation toward the opening night premiere of the Heggie opus
A farewell to Frisell
Old opera productions at the end of their performing life can be sad affairs.
A winner and new ‘Champion’
To paraphrase Terence Blanchard’s Champion, what makes an opera an opera?
A whiter shade of grail
It seems that François Girard has been watching a little too much Star Wars lately. His new production of Lohengrin, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera Sunday afternoon, reduced Wagner’s opera to a knockoff space opera, full of hackneyed sci-fi tropes and B-rated futurist apologue.
Back to the future
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
Soaring on multicolored wings
Eleanora Buratto at this fully matured point of her career has a warm, creamy full lyric soprano that has the roundness and sweet warmth of a Freni but can also expand into the spinto power of a Tebaldi.
Desert island diva
This sterling revival shows the Metropolitan to be surviving well and in good shape.
Playing with ‘Fire’
With composer Terence Blanchard and librettist Kasi Lemmons‘ incendiary Fire Shut Up in My Bones, the Met makes long overdue history and Will Liverman ascends to superstardom.
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.
Something With a ‘Ring’ to It
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
Everybody dance now
Austin McCormack‘s lascivious choreography outshone a tepid and tedious staging of Saint-Saëns’s old-testament epic.
Puppet show
Madama Butterfly remains fascinating because of its complexity.
A voice that must be heard
At the center of the Met’s revival of Puccini’s La bohème, one found the rich and layered talent of Angel Blue.
Dark matter
In Schikaneder’s patriarchal cosmology, darkness is the province of emotional women—not just the erratic fury of the Queen of the Night, but the pathetic supplications of Pamina as well.
The good earth
“Trove Thursday” presents Janet Baker in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde from 1970 partnered by Jess Thomas and conducted by Josef Krips.
And three for Mahler
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
Purists
Someone—a deranged purist no doubt—heckled Javier Camarena from the balcony of the opera house for withholding the infamous high F during “Credeasi, misera.”