A double bill (with a choral intermezzo) that just finished four nights’ run at the Manhattan School of Music is a delight, musically whimsical and reminiscent, wittily and colorfully staged.
Mozart and Donizetti could humanize characters in a farce—Mercadante in I due FIgaro cannot get a handle on them.
Forgotten operas when revived may prove to be only their own reward.
In The Gypsy Baron (Der Zigeunerbaron), currently (through Sunday) enjoying a revival by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, you get Strauss waltzes and patriotic marches.
Leos Janacek composed Adventures of Vixen Sharp-Ears, with its singing forest creatures of many species, in 1922-23.
A Birnam Wood of Macbeths and Ladys has come traipsing through New York this year.
The operas of Franz Josef Haydn are seldom presented in the great opera houses of the world, but then, they weren’t composed for the great opera houses of his own world.
A last minute scheduling conflict at the New York Post (curse you, Tony season!) meant that my planned review of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at Manhattan School of Music had to be 86ed.
The best joke in Offenbach’s delicious Orphée aux Enfers is the opening premise: Orphée and Eurydice are miserably married, due to her utter boredom with his old-fashioned music.
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.