The cat didn’t come back
“Along with every other music journalist in New York, I was blindsided by this news. If ever there was a company that appeared the picture of fiscal and artistic good health, it was Gotham.”
gotham chamber opera
Fine dell’opera
Gotham Chamber Opera is ceasing operations and will be closing.
It’s complicated
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a problematic opera—or, rather, it is an opera that has, in the last century or so, become problematic.
Puss perfect
Xavier Montsalvatge is best known in these parts for the songs of his “Antilles” period in the 1940s, the exquisite “Cinco Canciones Negras” and so on, making use of rhythms and melodies with a Caribbean flavor.
Martinu, very dry
Gotham Chamber Opera, which began to operate twelve years ago with a double bill of Bohuslav Martinu’s quirky little pieces, opened its 2014-15 season with two more, Alexandre bis (Alexander, twice) and Comedy on the Bridge.
Daily double
Here’s a quick last-minute quiz for you Martinu fans out there: answer the question after the jump and win two tickets to Gotham Chamber Opera’s double bill program of Alexandre bis and Comedy on the Bridge this week.
Raven review
The NY Phil Biennial, a new music festival that is dedicated to new music, kicked off its first season at a drowsy time on the performing arts calendar, the week after Memorial Day.
West side, east side
Recently, opera showed up at both Mets, the Metropolitan Opera and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Orpheus goes downtown
Marc-Antoine Charpentier came along at the wrong time for a composer of French opera.
Desk set
“Two Boys demonstrates that Mr. Muhly is capable of very great things indeed, offering extended glimpses of the kind of masterpiece he just missed writing here, and, more happily, of the kind of masterpiece I feel confident he will write in the future.”
Breaking Baden
Baden-Baden 1927 is the title Gotham Chamber Opera has given to its evening of four brief operas that premiered together at a festival in, yes, Baden-Baden on July 17, 1927.
Magrets de canard
For our weekly meander through mendacity, we turn to no less than Gotham Chamber Opera’s own Neal Goren, who writes, “People repeat as fact that women ruin their voices, or at least sacrifice their high notes, by singing in chest voice. So untrue!”
Fleur du mal
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the repentant Puritan—that is, he repented that his family had once been Puritans—describes the voice of Rappaccini’s Daughter, Beatrice, as “rich as a tropical sunset, … which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, think of deep hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable.”
Different from the others
Those of you who so readily groan, “Oh, dear god, no, not another Carmen! Give it a bleeding rest!” (and you know who you are) may lose that long face, temporarily at least, when you hear the exotic repertoire promised by Gotham Chamber Opera next season.
Emperor of the perverse
Short as Roman emperor Eliogabalo’s reign was, the world sighed in relief when it was over.
The Roman stain
Gotham Chamber Opera stumbled so badly Friday night with Francesco Cavalli’s 1668 Eliogabalo at The Box, it was hard to know whether to feel sad or angry—or both.
Box office
Although married five times including to the heretofore off-limits Vestal Virgin, he patronized hundreds of prostitutes while also showering political favors on his male lovers.
Rose to the occasion
Count on Gotham Chamber Opera to spice up the spring season.
Room for improvement
It’s hard to think of a rare work by a great composer more tailor-made for a twenty-first century reexamination than Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione.
Teen dream
Some days you can feel like a hero just getting out of bed in the morning.
Tudor City
It will come to no surprise to the parterriani (though perhaps something of a relief to Peter Gelb) that the most coveted ticket of the fall season in New York is Anna Bolena, the Donizetti premiere at the Met featuring Anna Netrebko‘s lovely head. Complete results of the more than 1,100 votes cast in the […]
Muhly marvelous
Enterprising Manhattan troupe Gotham Chamber Opera will announce tonight their participation in the commission of a new American opera, Dark Sisters, composed by Nico Muhly with libretto by Stephen Karam, conducted by Neal Goren, and directed by Rebecca Taichman.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
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).
