Tonight’s program at the New York Philharmonic, Arthur Honegger’s massive oratorio dramatique Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher, has been an occasional visitor to the orchestra’s repertoire starting with the performance conducted by Charles Munch in January of 1948.
The visit of the Mariinsky Theater’s resident company to the glittering opera house of the Brooklyn Academy of Music consists of three ballet programs with starry casts preceded, last night, by a single performance of Rodion Shchedrin’s opera, The Enchanted Wanderer.
If you are of the belief that Show Boat can stand on its own as a classic score and thus doesn’t need the trappings of musical production, you’ll love the New York Philharmonic’s “semi-staged” production.
Who is the most happy fella, he who perfectly fits societal definitions of fitness and attractiveness, or he who attains self-acceptance in spite of whatever personal idiosyncrasies he may confront?
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
The Met’s financial challenges are not meteorological, demographic, or cyclical; they are structural.
We were not at Carnegie Hall to hear superb opera singers bestow their vocalism upon Alban Berg’s Wozzeck; we are there to hear the Wiener Staatsoper’s house band work their magic upon an intricate, spooky, devastating score.
The merits of Candide—Leonard Bernstein‘s musically glimmering yet dramatically awkward comic operetta based on Voltaire’s novella – are on ravishing display at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
Ambiguity. That’s the theme of the operas of Benjamin Britten (ennobled as Baron Britten of Aldeburgh).
Whenever I encounter Eric Owens, he’s plotting to conquer the universe.
It took about 30 minutes for me to grow restless watching the world premiere video of Gyorgi Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre from Gran Teatre del Liceu.
I had every reason to think I’d love the New York Phil’s production of The Cunning Little Vixen as much as I did their staging of Le Grand Macabre with the same creative team.
The setting: a dark plaza extending directly in front of a storied opera house. The time: just after a ho-hum revival of something Puccini. The crowd streams out, moderately satisfied but also far from bowled over. A group open to a proposition, you could say.
This live CD of Wagner orchestral excerpts and the Wesendonck Lieder is noteworthy for the conducting of Franz Welser-Most and the truly remarkable playing of The Cleveland Orchestra. I have seldom heard an ensemble sound so beautiful on CD. The strings shimmer like satin, the reeds are clean and clear, the brass warm and burnished with…
Look, this is a very special piece of music for me. You were twenty once, right? You were self-righteous. You had your musical heroes, and your mind was being remolded every fifteen minutes or so by a rapid succession of new experiences that challenged your notions of what music could do.
When invited to participate in a discourse on artistic standards (hello, internet!), it’s easy — pleasurable, even — for an aesthete to bray about “the fall.” Where are the true heldentenors? Your kingdom for a Callas! (Or a Stratas, or a Rysanek!) And might the public, at long last, deserve a stable of directors who…
The Met’s premiere production of Verdi’s Attila is terrible. Are you surprised? Attila is like a self-conscious stroll down Rodeo Drive – or even worse, to the Mall of America – reducing an opera about ruthless tyranny brought down by ruthless vengeance to a quaint and insipid fashion show.
Not Tosca, of course, cher public — La Cieca could never say that about her dear, dear Tosca. But it does seem both shabby and shocking that the combined forces of The New York Philharmonic and Charles Zachary Bornstein, the Philharmonic’s Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence would not at the very least ask for a retake of…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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