Two opera houses, both alike in dignity (but less so in resources and international fame) launched their seasons this week, making similar out-of-the-box choices: new works on edgy, contemporary themes.
Sylvia Korman previews The Listeners, the latest and most ambitious opera by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek that opens this week at Opera Philadelphia with tickets for just $11
What’s the status of the American Dream nowadays? Did it ever really exist? If it’s dead, why isn’t it gone?
To conclude its triumphant season, last week the Met Orchestra performed its annual Carnegie Hall concerts under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and once again performed superbly.
Hunger was the note of the night, a sentiment shared between the audience and Proving Up, a lean and hungry one-act telling a story of drought and desperation on the post-Civil War Western frontier.
Out of a literal perforation in the horizon of the Nebraskan prairie emerges Proving Up, the most convincing case I have ever seen for modern American opera.
Breaking the Waves is not only a “real opera,” it is an immensely powerful work of music drama.
Missy Mazzoli, a 36-year-old composer from Brooklyn, has created the most startling and moving new American opera in memory.