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.
Metropolitan Opera
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.
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.
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.
Prophète bien aimé
New Amsterdam Opera specializes in American singers whose abilities are as yet little known.
Something With a ‘Ring’ to It
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
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.
“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 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.
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).