In terms of wild applause, it was Donna Murphy as Aurelia who was front and center, exciting the audience to a fervor with each re-emergence on the stage.
By David Fox
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Following the great success of its new piece The Factotum, Lyric Opera of Chicago returned to the tried and true with the audience-pleaser Carmen in an equally tried and true 20-year old Lyric production that has stood the test of time.
By Henson Keys
On Friday, MCal Performances—the performing arts organization based at University of California, Berkeley—presented the US premiere of South African multi-disciplinary artist William Kentridge’s Sybil, with music composed and conceived by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd.
Angela Meade, reportedly flown in at the very last minute to take on the role of Norma, absolutely triumphed, pulling out all the stops to deliver a commanding performance that should, indeed, go down in history.
Originally scheduled for a D.C. premiere in spring 2020 but thwarted by the pandemic, Washington National Opera was finally able to present composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tazewell Thompson’s Blue at the Kennedy Center last Saturday.
By Alex Baker
Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron showed herself unafraid to move the expectations of classical music forward, linguistically, thematically, and culturally.
There’s nothing unusual about casting a woman in Solomon‘s titular role.
By Max Keller
Verdi’s Falstaff is a brilliantly written opera: funny, with a complex ability to operate across minutely shifting registers of farce and lyricism. It needs, ideally, a production and cast capable of executing both comedy and drama, irony and sincerity—often concurrently. In its current Met revival, happily, Falstaff has everything it needs.
The program for Jasmine Rice LaBeija’s concert as part of Works & Process at the Guggenheim on Wednesday, March 8 read a bit like a curriculum vitae.
By Max Keller
This was a wonderful concert because MIchael Tilson Thomas approached every moment of it with an air of expansiveness and gratitude.
I can’t imagine anything more anxiety-inducing than being put in at last-minute to sing a role in a high-profile production at the Met.
By Harry Rose
Frankly I thought Sondra Radvanovsky had reached her pinnacle with her Norma but I was apparently mistaken. I’m happy to say her Turandot is completely next-level.
By Patrick Mack
Angel Blue‘s refulgent, lush soprano blooms as Violetta’s vocal lines broaden and soar.
By Eli Jacobson
Through a lucky coincidence of timing, I was able to catch up with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a play I adore, in two productions playing at the same time.
By David Fox
The Vienna Philharmonic brought along no star soloist for their three-night residency at Carnegie Hall this past weekend. Their programs didn’t include any commissions or flashy new works. The repertoire choices hewed closely to the core Austro-German corpus for which they are justly famous, including multiple works they had given in their world premieres.
Non-observant Jew that I am, my recent immersion into not one by two new plays—Pictures from Home on Broadway, and The Wanderers at the Roundabout—that very much live in that world was something of a double-whammy.
By David Fox
On the train ride home I was thinking that I don’t want to see or hear Norma ever again.
Cotton, a world-premiere song cycle commissioned by Philadelphia’s Lyric Fest, takes its audience on a journey through Black American history that extends from the Deep South to the contemporary urban landscape.
It seems that François Girard has been watching a little too much Star Wars lately. His new production of Lohengrin, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera Sunday afternoon, reduced Wagner’s opera to a knockoff space opera, full of hackneyed sci-fi tropes and B-rated futurist apologue.
Updating opera settings is, of course, expected; I’d wager in most houses more often than not it’s now the norm. Still, few in my experience have the specificity and local immediacy of Don Pasquale at the Academy of Vocal Arts.
By David Fox
A stack of noteworthy recent baroque vocal CDs on my desk has been staring at me for weeks, so I’m tackling them on Handel’s birthday before the Met roars back into action beginning this weekend.
What’s the status of the American Dream nowadays? Did it ever really exist? If it’s dead, why isn’t it gone?
Ghost sex is part of the popular zeitgeist.
By Max Keller
Baritone Will Liverman is becoming a real Renaissance man.
By Henson Keys
