Christopher Corwin and Andrew Lokay provide dual perspectives on the National Symphony Orchestra‘s performances of Puccini’s triple-bill.
Following the announcement that she’ll make her Met debut next season, Grand Tier Grab Bag brings Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi to your attention with a duet from Manon Lescaut.
“Let me look around once more. Who knows when I shall see this house again?”
Wolf Trap Opera concluded its 2025 summer season last month with a production of Carmen that was vocally strong, though not entirely dramatically satisfying, amid challenging weather.
I’ve been waiting (nearly) 20 years for another encounter with Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Vanessa.
In concert with Renée Fleming’s quietly authoritative stage presence, the performance offered frequent reminders of the special affinity between this singer and Strauss’s aristocratic women.
This Traviata remained firmly Beltway-bound and by the time I had gotten home, the 45-minute traffic jam to leave the parking lot was eminently fresher in my mind than the evening’s performance.
Concerts at Wolf Trap, mixed bags in more ways than one, provided fleeting glimpses of the old normal as moments of frisson mingled with more familiar monotony.
For the weeks between the announcement that the return of Wolf Trap Opera would, in part, take the form of a concert performance of Sweeney Todd and its opening at the Filene Center on Friday evening, I racked my brain: why Sweeney now?
March 2, 2020 – June 18, 2021: Those 15 months were the longest I’ve gone without attending a live opera performance since high school.
Christine Goerke‘s distracted, tentative Isolde turned out to be the least potent feature of what was an otherwise exciting and effective second act of Tristan.
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).
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