To live and die in L.A.
Trove Thursday presents a double dose of the Verdi Messa da Requiem performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
New York
I had too much to dream last night
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
Drama is real
Teatro Nuovo put on a perfectly delightful show on Thursday night.
Nixon in Jersey: The Renixoning
The singers and the orchestra carry the show, but where do they carry it?
Bolder sister
Brigitte Fassbaender‘s sound is piquant and, I’d hazard to guess, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with her work.
Under the silver lake
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” went the introduction to the 1940s radio program The Shadow, an apt description for the San Francisco Opera’s production of Rusalka.
È la solita storia del tenore
While Luciano Pavarotti may have brought opera to the people, once he realized how lucrative it could be, there was a string of promoters who helped him turn all that adoration into cold hard cash.
Something cool
Elina Garanca was radiantly present at Carnegie Hall Friday night performing a ravishingly somber Rückert-Lieder with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the MET Orchestra.
Mr. Fabulous
Michael Fabiano is a boss. This is a fact.
Welcome Bach
An unusually provocative program by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Bernard Labadie with soloists Lydia Teuscher and Benno Schachtner made my “return” Thursday evening an illuminating and rewarding experience at Zankel Hall.
Nice nice baby
“Tame” seemed to be the appropriate adjective to describe San Francisco Opera’s Carmen.
Pardon my dust
David Lang’s Prisoner of the State, which was premiered on Thursday night by the New York Philharmonic, places the issue of mass incarceration front and center, foregrounding the violence of the prison system, both physical and psychological.
“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up”
Tosca, as it exists now, can’t be real, spontaneous drama-it’s just Camp.
All I mask of you
Amore Opera, an old-fashioned, adventurous little company that performs ambitious and sometimes delectably obscure but worthy repertory at the Riverside Theatre, is now (through Sunday) presenting Un ballo in maschera.
She’s a rebel, she’s a saint
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
Star-crossed
For more than 40 years, the magnificent opening image from Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites has served as an icon for the Met.
Can’t get you out of my head
Today the good guy finally gets his chance with San Giovanni Battista by Alessandro Stradella featuring Christophe Dumaux as John the Baptist.
Prophète bien aimé
New Amsterdam Opera specializes in American singers whose abilities are as yet little known.
Something With a ‘Ring’ to It
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
Like a prayer
It was quite a pleasure—a privilege, really—to see John Dexter’s legendary production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
Sunday will never be the same
“Trove Thursday” presents two live versions of Sunday in the Park with George.
Into the wooed
We are the elusive, the mysterious, the ever-courted Millennial Audience, Mr. Darcy to the marketing department’s Mrs. Bennet.
The end is the beginning of the end
At the Metropolitan Opera’s Götterdämmerung on Saturday afternoon, the fires which consumed the Gods burned lukewarm.
“The richest food that money can buy”
All about the life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, but depicted as an opera performed as a dress rehearsal for an opera.
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).