There was something very Russian—indeed, Chekhovian—about the mix of joy and tears, as the Academy of Vocal Arts performed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
When was the last time the Metropolitan Opera mounted a new production that was musically outstanding yet the direction and/or design mostly sucked?
Jordi Savall and William Christie, 80 and 77 respectively, stand as the two senior masters whose recordings and appearances have done the most over the past decades to build a healthy local enthusiasm for pre-Classical music.
Minutes into “An die Nacht,” the first song Friday night, I realized how much I’d missed being enveloped in that seductive Straussian combination of a soprano (or two or three) rising higher and higher over a surging orchestra.
Young voices ringing out Stravinsky’s witty melodies at close quarters gives great pleasure if you are fond of this witty score and its many parodies of early operatic cliché.
Jerry Zaks’ high-gloss production, which trades heavily on a bland Americana at odds with the sharp satire of Meredith Willson’s libretto and timeless score, operates on all cylinders but fires on hardly any.
The Kennedy Center’s Opera House was a white-hot crucible of theatre kid energy on Friday evening for a luxurious 50 Years of Broadway at the Kennedy Center gala.
Embedded in the discursive scenes that make up the 100-minute play Shhhh is the notion that the line between pleasure and pain—of the corporeal and psychological varieties—is ever-shifting and often problematically conceived.
Lyric Opera of Chicago scored a smashing success on Sunday with its “Verdi Voices” concert, featuring soprano Tamara Wilson, tenor Russell Thomas, and Lyric Music Director Enrique Mazzola conducting Members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra in what might be termed a program of Verdi’s Greatest Hits.
It’s 1938. We know, even if the characters do not, how the story will end.
Two hours of bedazzlement await you.
In the last weeks of January, as the Metropolitan Opera season wound to a close (prior to the winter hiatus) two striking sopranos were thrust into the limelight.
So that there’s no confusion: the Long Day’s Journey into Night seen here is contemporary, political, brutal, and universal.
Only time can tell if some performances enter the collective opera memory, if such a thing even exists, as “historical”
Opera Philadelphia’s return to the stage after two years was greeted by a cheering crowd who clearly would have been happy to stay longer, but as director David Devan acknowledged, this was a step in a continuing trajectory.
Despite having lost its announced Cherubino, conductor and Count (the latter in the midst of rehearsals), the season premiere of Le Nozze di Figaro Saturday afternoon proved to be one of the most enjoyable Met Mozart performances I’ve attended in ages.
At the heart of this success was Quinn Kelsey’s revelatory take on Rigoletto. He was matched, vocally and dramatically, by Rosa Feola’s Gilda—a tour-de-force performance.
The sonic wizards of the Netherlands at Pentatone have released their latest in the series of Maestro Lawrence Foster’s studio opera recordings. Reunited with his Lisbon forces, the Gulbenkian Orquestra and Coro, for a fresh take on Puccini’s three-hanky weeper.
Part vaudeville, part opera concert and part drag ball, Heartbeat Opera’s pageant was like a cup of eggnog spiked with a dash of LSD.
The Met’s Cinderella is a charming adaptation of Massenet’s opera. Frothy, fun, and enchanting, it is a magical holiday treat for the whole family to enjoy.
A good time seemed to be had by all though I don’t recall seeing a single child in attendance.
I see in Kimberly Akimbo an audacious idea, once unthinkable territory for a musical, which is realized through a highly imaginative and often unpredictable use of song and especially open-ended ensemble writing.
Katrina Lenk’s Bobbie dutifully channels an assertive, contemporary, sexually confident female persona, but it doesn’t feel fully realized or convincing.
Sondra Radvanovsky was a force of nature as Tosca on Thursday night at the Met.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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