Following new productions of Tosca in 2017, Adriana Lecouvreur in 2018, and the Anna Netrebko-led Puccini orgy of 2019, New Year’s Eve at the Met has come to signify that verismo, as this school tends to be known, is still kicking.
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The more ignorant segments of the public and the critical establishment continue to shout praise to David McVicar‘s torpid Tosca as the greatest triumph of the reactionary since the Bourbon Restoration.
Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
After five flops in a row, Mr. McVicar continues to win new assignments from the Met.
During its first-ever Roberto Devereux Thursday evening one felt transported back to the Volpe years: four of the Met’s biggest stars shining in an opulent (if occasionally perverse) but reassuringly non-challenging production paid for by Sybil B. Harrington.
“David McVicar, on his knee, with… Mariusz Kwiecien during a rehearsal.”
Friday’s season premiere at the Met of Donizetti’s opera about the doomed Scottish queen proved surprisingly satisfying and a genuine success for Sondra Radvanovsky.
Die Meistersinger is a bold stroke of programming, in a not particularly exciting way.
Absent from Chicago Lyric Opera’s repertory for 21 years, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck came roaring into town on Sunday afternoon in a stunning new production by Sir David McVicar.
“This throwback to the golden age of opera—superhuman singing greeted with frenzied ovations—was a function of a perfect storm of excitement.”
The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
It is easy to become overly identified with opera—as a cleverer friend of mine once noted: being a sports fan is an interest, but if you like opera, everyone thinks of it as a crippling obsession.
The next scheduled appearance of the Met’s Ring production has been canceled, as irrevocably as these things can ever be.
Giulio Cesare at the Met proved an evening that added up to much more than the sum of its uneven parts.
True, Joyce DiDonato’s Mary spat out those fighting words in a tangy chest voice, but it was hard to believe she meant them.
It’s easiest to write reviews when there are soaring triumphs and miserable failures.
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