Soprano Patricia Racette is superb in La Voix Humaine, a work that she makes absolutely her own.
Soprano Ashley Marie Robillard and mezzo Siena Licht Miller evoke a journey to Paris, Venice, Berlin, and London.
It would be hard to imagine a more apt and poignant metaphor for the ambitious O18 Festival than the world premiere of Lembit Beecher and Hannah Moscovitch’s Sky on Swings.
Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, a top-tier advanced training program for singers launching professional careers, always sends off their artists in style.
Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht’s Mahagonny Singspiel, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium—are not only combined, but configured to overlap in sometimes revealing, occasionally confounding ways.
How do you like your Carmen? Mezzo or soprano? Flirtatious? Confrontational? Smolderingly sexy?
What if you could time travel back to the first run of Giuseppe Verdi’s first great success Nabucco?
Opera Philadelphia ended its season with Le Nozze di Figaro, Friday, and it will play May 3, 5, and 7—a matinee. Figaro is considered by most to be one of the few perfect operas and although it’s perhaps too easily encountered in routine run-throughs, there are usually rewards in seeing it.
Curtis Opera Theater mounted a musically remarkable account of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic on March 2.
Sandrine Piau‘s lovely recital with pianist Susan Manoff at The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society on February 14 entered around the themes of sleep, dreams and waking.
Tancredi, given on February 10th, was a credit to Opera Philadelphia, who offered a well-considered and compelling production.
How Verdi’s opera might address this particular nightmare was unclear.
Missy Mazzoli, a 36-year-old composer from Brooklyn, has created the most startling and moving new American opera in memory.
Capriccio was a great pleasure on Friday night, March 4. This was a co-production of Opera Philadelphia and The Curtis Institute, presented in the intimate Pearlman Theater at the Kimmel Center.
Jarrett Ott is a star. That is the only surprise takeaway from the well-intended snore, Cold Mountain.
Lisette Oropesa sang “The Lost One”—the meaning of “traviata.”
There was wonder and magic last night in Philly when The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society presented British tenor Mark Padmore and American pianist Jonathan Biss in a recital devoted to the songs of Schumann, Tippett, and Fauré.
It’s a place where the one thing you can expect is the unexpected. The place is… Philadelphia?
I received a package in the mail this afternoon from La Cieca, and eagerly tore it open. I knew that this was to be my parterre review assignment… rapture! It was a CD of an opera: The Brothers composed by… George Antheil? Who the fuck is that? After researching him for a bit, I got…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.