Christian Thielemann is widely regarded as our time’s preeminent master of the Austro-German symphonic ensemble.
Stefan Vinke’s Siegfried was not so much brawny and terrestrial, but heady and mercurial
Peter Mattei, one of my two favorite baritones these days, in an unexpected title role, Britten’s Billy Budd.
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.
Ivo van Hove really seems to be everywhere lately.
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.
One needs liberty in order to be a libertine.
The finals on Sunday seemed a bit like the modern-day operatic equivalent of the Roman colosseum.