General Elektra
Nina Stemme’s Elektra is familiar to me in three different incarnations.
Metropolitan Opera
Can you ‘Fille’ the love tonight
La Fille du Régiment, Donizetti’s half-spoken ode to La France about a girl raised by a division of daddies, is at once infamous and beloved for the string of nine high C’s capping act one.
Boy meets world
A beautiful concert of 18th century sacred music arrived at Weill Recital Hall performed by the soulful Polish Wunderkind Jakub Jósef Orlinski.
Grazie Millo
There are, on rare occasions, moments in a live performance where some intangible symbiotic relationship between audience and performer creates an instant that borders on the sublime.
New blood
I was shocked to realize I hadn’t seen Don Giovanni at the Met since Michael Grandage’s stultifying production opened in 2011.
What’s done cannot be Undine
Academy of Vocal Arts’ Rusalka—surprisingly, only their second venture in many years into the Slavic repertoire—left a divided impression.
Skeleton key
Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle both use themes of vision and revelation to ask compelling questions about knowledge, responsibility, and gender.
Reach out in the darkness
Iolanta was crowned on Thursday evening by Sonya Yoncheva’s haunting portrayal of the blind title character.
Natural woman
I do not envy Jennifer Rowley the task of stepping into Anna Netrebko’s shoes.
Mad about the Prey
A 1985 broadcast of Don Giovanni featuring Cheryl Studer, Gundula Janowitz (as Elvira!), Krisztina Laki, Gösta Winbergh, Hermann Prey (in a rare outing as the Don) and Malcolm King conducted by Jeffrey Tate.
L’Heure exquise
Although she didn’t sing that eponymous song by Reynaldo Hahn at Weill Recital Hall Thursday evening, Sabine Devieilhe did offer an “exquisite hour” of early 20th century French songs.
At first sight
If I had to live with just one Tchaikovsky opera, it would be Iolanta.
House of the setting sun
When a work is named for its lovers one might legitimately expect that pair to dominate its performance but in my experience that is never the case with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
Out of sight, out of mind
Now, you would think nothing could please gaycentric La Cieca more than yesterday’s New York Times profile of the Met’s new music director…
Discomfort zone
Roberto Alagna’s physical and vocal embodiment of Don José lent his particular narrative a complication I hadn’t anticipated.
Neigh sayers: Frightening the Horses
At tonight’s performance of Aida at the Met, the Triumphal Scene horses suddenly panicked and tried to bolt from the stage. I can’t say I blame them.
Brute force
Alban Berg’s compact yet potent oeuvre has long played an outsized role in shaping my understanding of music’s aesthetic evolution.
A talent to a Muse
Use bodily force and get your friends to one of the next five performances of the Met’s new production of Adriana Lecouvreur. It is everything!
Down for the Comte
We close 2018 with Le Comte Ory with an enviable nearly all-Italian cast of prime-time Rossini specialists: Mariella Devia, Cecila Bartoli, Ewa Podles, William Matteuzzi, Claudio Desderi and Pietro Spagnoli.
Next to Norman
In addition to Jessye Norman, this event paid homage to the shamefully obscure soprano Sissieretta Jones—once billed as “The Black Patti.”
Just add magic
Heretofore I’d avoided the Met’s abridged, English-language holiday presentations.
Emmanuel labor
Philadelphia is a city famous for its musical institutions—so, of course, at this time of year Messiah performances abound.
No mere wisp of a woman
On this day in 1937 soprano Zinka Milanov made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Il trovatore.
Lion, tamer
At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
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).