Ottoman and woman
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Midwest
Practical magic
Notable purveyor of mayhem and infanticide Medea has lately been missing from the local operatic scene, but Sunday afternoon sections of the recently renovated Alice Tully Hall were singed by Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle’s blazing incarnation of the Greek sorceress.
Barn yesterday
The Cleveland Orchestra’s premiere performance of Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen proved to be both a critical and audience success.
The world on a string: talking to Jamie Barton
American mezzo Jamie Barton, who has steadily been winning fans in the US over the past few years for her rich and nuanced singing, took the international opera world by storm last weekend by winning both the Song Prize as well as the overall prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
Grand, hotel
Sneaking in under the wire during the final week of May were two highpoints of New York’s opera season: the Cleveland Orchestra’s Salome with a stunning Nina Stemme and operamission’s revelatory US stage premiere of a complete edition of Handel’s first opera Almira.
Witch of the season
Noticing how often she turns up lately, one might guess that the operatic “heroine” for the global economic crunch is Medea, the mythological Greek sorceress and filicide.
Blow’s job
Despite baby-steps over the years, America’s musical scene, especially opera, remains decidedly un-HIP. (HIP: “historically-informed performance,” also called “period performance.”) While European opera houses turn increasingly to “original instrument” orchestras and specialist singers for seventeenth and eighteenth century works, this rarely occurs in the US.
Millenial Marty
Just imagine! The legend herself, Anja Silja taking time out of a busy rehearsal schedule (and despite her concern about the orchestra, problematic in early runthroughs)—to talk to parterre box. I confess I imagined she would be at least a little bit like her character of Emilia Marty—cynical, burned out, impatient. What a surprise, then, […]
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).