Phil Chan described his point of departure for reimagining Orientalist works as the question, “what else could this be?”
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Power struggles, prejudice, feuds and revenge abound in San Francisco at the moment.
The great archetypal image of an opera singer is a towering Wagnerian soprano who shatters entire panes of glass the moment she opens her mouth.
When our friends at Naxos and C Major announced near-dueling releases of Puccini’s “shabby little shocker,” I was ready with my critic’s pen dipped in bile.
At the northern tip of Seneca, longest and deepest of New York State’s Finger Lakes, sits the pretty little town of Geneva.
In the case of this summer’s resuscitation project at the Bard Summerscape Festival, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Henri VIII , it was quite evident that this is a dramatically sound work with consistently well-crafted, theatrically vital and attractive music that provides at least three roles for gifted singing actors.
Teatro Nuovo took a spirited journey of rediscovery into the valley of forgotten operas and resurrected Federico and Luigi Ricci’s 1850 opera buffa Crispino e la Comare last Thursday at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
It was thrilling to see and hear Will Crutchfield’s insights come to life onstage in performance when Teatro Nuovo performed Poliuto at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center Wednesday July 19.
If sex sells, then the 40 years of success for Evita show that the strawman construction and vicious takedown of an unsexy, supremely unlikable woman in just under two-and-a-half hours is just as viable a quantity.
June is long gone. It was truly a month of excellence and exuberance here in San Francisco, coupled with cozy and inviting weather, as if to make up for the extended winter.
It’s been eight decades since darling Aix-en-Provence was under attack—its last formal invasion, at least by non-operagoers, was in 1942 during the German occupation of southern France. But on Friday, the town was besieged once again by its annual festival, with two dazzling premieres that examined the cruel and constructive dimensions of war and revolution.
The Aix festival organized two back-to-back evening concerts dedicated to the Russian masters. One was an embarrassment of Slavic riches, the other… well, just an embarrassment.
With unrest and looting nearby as France learned collectively that minority lives should matter, Marseille-adjacent Aix-en-Provence could be forgiven for the heavy-handedness of launching its 75th anniversary summer Festival with a new French translation of the ultimate carnival of social tension, The Threepenny Opera.
The ailing and grief-stricken Pinkerton was shown to give his son a diary about his time in Nagasaki, and as Trouble read it, he (and the audience) was taken back in time as the story came to life, similar to the use of Pensieve in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4).
This showcase concert gave notice that countertenor Hugh Cutting is among the most promising artists of his generation.
Despite the ever-increasing media coverage of San Francisco’s “doom loop,” June 2023 will be forever remembered as the time where San Francisco was the opera capital of the United States.
On June 20, a rather breezy, pleasant cool summer evening, the soprano Gabriella Reyes, tenor René Barbera and baritone Will Liverman took over the Summerstage space with a wide-ranging, ambitious recital program with Dimitri Dover tickling the ivories.
On June 16, San Francisco Opera concluded their excellent Centennial Season with a heartfelt 100th Anniversary Concert, featuring a starry cast, three conductors (including current and former Music Directors) and the SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
“I joyfully await the exit—and I hope never to return” were the last words written by the visionary Mexican painter, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (famously known simply as Frida Kahlo), according to her 2002 biography by Hayden Herrera.
Death of Classical, under the direction of founder Andrew Ousley, is interested in enlivening the classical music genre by organizing events in Green-Wood Cemetery, usually with a focus on food and drink.
Richard Strauss’ monumental (arguably his magnum opus) Die Frau ohne Schatten made a triumphant return to the War Memorial Opera House last Sunday June 4 after 34 years.
Lyric Opera of Chicago has brought back its wildly successful 2019 production of West Side Story, directed by Francesca Zambello. I thought it was terrific back then and, even with numerous cast changes, it was just as terrific on Sunday afternoon.
Although somewhat flawed, Days of Wine and Roses draws from the same musical language that made Piazza so instantly distinctive, and it features a specificity that I noticed in Adam Guettel’s earlier breakthrough work, Floyd Collins.
Renée Fleming arrived at Carnegie Hall on May 31 with something to prove.
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