Third leg
The term “narrative prosthesis” refers to the tendency for works of literature to use disability as the conflict upon which the whole narrative hinges. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is a quintessential example of “narrative prosthesis.”
Review
Avant de quitter la scène
As of late, the Bay Area has been blessed with a few high-wattage, high-profile recitals as if to compensate for the chilly temperatures and gloomy weather. Roughly a month after Lise Davidsen made an ebullient debut at Cal Performances, the Bay Area welcomed French soprano Natalie Dessay last Saturday.
Think of the children
One of the highlights, if not the highlight, of No-Met-February was an all-Ravel evening presented by the Juilliard Orchestra.
The twilight zone
As I mentioned in my last article (on the subject of Calixto Bieito’s production of Das Rheingold at the Paris Opera), in what the French might call une histoire belge, La Monnaie’s Ring cycle started with Romeo Castellucci as its director, and is now ending with Pierre Audi.
Another op’nin’, another show
Opera San José (OSJ) is continuing the second half of its 41st season with a company premiere of Béla Bartók’s Symbolist opera Bluebeard’s Castle (A kékszakállú herceg vára), with a libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs, and OSJ truly spared no effort to make the occasion a memorable one.
The baptism of Konstantin
Sitting in Park Avenue Armory last week for the American debut of baritone Konstantin Krimmel, the rush of joy I felt was two-fold.
Girl next door
My first introduction to Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle was the musicologist Susan McClary’s infamous book Feminine Endings. Here, McClary likened her search of a feminist musicology to Judith’s journey through the seven doors; a journey that ends in Judith’s symbolic death.
Americans in Paris
Even if our monolingual American tourists can be the source of vexation for many a Parisian, our singers gave much for the city’s operagoers to admire this month in stylish productions of Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and I Puritani at the Opéra Bastille.
Voce di donna o diavolo
Larry Wolff continues his musings on Verdi’s varied career, this time over Giovanna d’Arco at the Teatro Regio in Parma
God grief
Nigel Wilkinson takes on the first installment of the Paris Opera’s new Calixto Bieito-directed Ring Cycle
Of paunches and princes
Revivals of Falstaff in Milan and Don Carlo in Naples have Larry Wolff thinking across the six decades of Verdi‘s career
Sung and spoken tragedy
The return of Cherubini‘s Medée to the Opéra Comique may be a homecoming, but Nigel Wilkinson almost went home at intermission.
Back to the island
Annapolis Opera presented a celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s reflections on love, relationships, and marriage, pairing a fully staged production of Trouble in Tahiti with a collection of songs from other Bernstein compositions.
Kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Only disordered and volcanic intellects need apply for this beautifully deranged production of Salome from Heartbeat Opera
Look to the western sky
Not even howling winds and thunderous rain could dampen the excitement of Bay Area audiences to experience Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen for the first time in the Bay Area at Zellerbach Hall Berkeley last Tuesday, 4 February.
Not a Marietta
We are a nostalgic sort, we opera lovers. Fortunately, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, which arrived in concert form to Boston’s Symphony Hall last weekend, is all about nostalgia.
And her mother too
After a flurry of coverage over the past weeks, Opera Lafayette, in partnership with New Orleans’s OperaCréole, finally premiered Edmond Dédé’s Morgiane, ou Le Sultan d’Ispahan in DC last night.
She has come, she has come
I’ve been waiting (nearly) 20 years for another encounter with Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Vanessa.
Aged in oak
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
Playing midwives to an egg
Nigel Wilkinson reports on Teodor Curentzis and Peter Sellars‘s new production of Rameau‘s Castor et Pollux in Paris.
Ode to Ode to Joy
Are Beethoven’s symphonies overplayed? Yes, but for a reason. While this justification may sound cliché, Beethoven’s humanist universalism is a sentiment that feels urgent in an era of widespread polarization and pessimism.
Meninas and meninos
Despite the practically unmitigated fiasco of the last Verdi concert opera performance seen in Boston, I approached Sunday’s Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras performance of Don Carlo at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre with much more optimism.
Act III at last
John Yohalem reports from the New York Dramatic Voices performance of Act III of Die Walküre
Roadkill, twice over
Though I’ve sometimes complained that the Paris Opera, while supposedly short of cash, changes its productions nearly as often as the rest of us change our socks, André Engel’s Cunning Little Vixen first appeared there 17 years ago. At the time it was billed as ‘new’, though it actually dates back further still, to 2000 at the Lyon Opera. I saw it when it arrived at the Bastille and wrote it up at the time.
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).