At first sight
If I had to live with just one Tchaikovsky opera, it would be Iolanta.
New York
House of the setting sun
When a work is named for its lovers one might legitimately expect that pair to dominate its performance but in my experience that is never the case with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
Out of sight, out of mind
Now, you would think nothing could please gaycentric La Cieca more than yesterday’s New York Times profile of the Met’s new music director…
Discomfort zone
Roberto Alagna’s physical and vocal embodiment of Don José lent his particular narrative a complication I hadn’t anticipated.
Knock on wood
Cellist Leah Coloff’s one-woman cabaret act ThisTree finds its place among a lineup of Prototype Festival miniatures this week that seem to plumb the depths of womanly distress.
Neigh sayers: Frightening the Horses
At tonight’s performance of Aida at the Met, the Triumphal Scene horses suddenly panicked and tried to bolt from the stage. I can’t say I blame them.
Borderlines
While 4.48 Psychosis is an intricately-crafted, deeply moving portrait of human agony, Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance lacks the creative clout to realize its artistic ambitions.
Trauma queens
Though barely a week old, 2019 has already provided New Yorkers with an essential, breathtaking music drama focusing on two women struggling for their very survival.
Brute force
Alban Berg’s compact yet potent oeuvre has long played an outsized role in shaping my understanding of music’s aesthetic evolution.
A talent to a Muse
Use bodily force and get your friends to one of the next five performances of the Met’s new production of Adriana Lecouvreur. It is everything!
Down for the Comte
We close 2018 with Le Comte Ory with an enviable nearly all-Italian cast of prime-time Rossini specialists: Mariella Devia, Cecila Bartoli, Ewa Podles, William Matteuzzi, Claudio Desderi and Pietro Spagnoli.
Next to Norman
In addition to Jessye Norman, this event paid homage to the shamefully obscure soprano Sissieretta Jones—once billed as “The Black Patti.”
Just add magic
Heretofore I’d avoided the Met’s abridged, English-language holiday presentations.
Emmanuel labor
Philadelphia is a city famous for its musical institutions—so, of course, at this time of year Messiah performances abound.
Frick show
French early music group Ensemble Correspondances offered two of the year’s very best concerts.
No mere wisp of a woman
On this day in 1937 soprano Zinka Milanov made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Il trovatore.
Lion, tamer
At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
Three more times!
The long evening didn’t achieve the degree of celebration it should have.
The vinyl countdown
At one point I spent a couple of months on the dole and dollar record shopping had a number of obvious virtues as a pastime.
Not the Messiah
Four fine Handel-centric concerts from the Morgan Library to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center proved a bracing antidote to pervasive Messiah-mania.
The good shepherd
L’Arlesiana in a vibrant live performance from a dozen years ago with Giuseppe Filianoti, Latonia Moore and Marianne Cornetti.
My sister, my queen
It had something for everyone who loves loud chesty singing and smoky soft-singing: from Tchaikovsky to Rachmaninoff to Strauss…
A boy’s best friend
At the opening of the Scottish Opera’s 2017 production of Turnage’s opera Greek, I was very sorry I’d missed Anna Nicole.
Against the grain
I wondered if there truly is a future for opera other than as an overpriced museum piece for an aging audience who likes their sets lavish, their productions non-challenging, and their singers telegenic.
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).