Lulu’s back in town
Continuing coverage of the Met’s new Alban Berg spectacular.
Review
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress”
In New York, tradition insists, there are no limits to where a preposterous idea, talent and relentless determination will take you, in defiance of all the odds.
Cherchez la femme (fatale)
Lilith. Pandora. Circe. Salome. “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” Carmen. Brigid O’Shaughnessy: the eternal “femme fatale” still fascinates us.
Multicolored
Polish singers are chameleons. They have to be.
Hell on wheels
Absent from Chicago Lyric Opera’s repertory for 21 years, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck came roaring into town on Sunday afternoon in a stunning new production by Sir David McVicar.
Myths, matched
“CanCon”, or Canadian Content, is always a concern in Canadian cultural discourse.
Aged in blood
Simply put, Christine Goerke is a stupendous Elektra.
Lounge act
After nearly three years and over 20 performances Michael Mayer’s “Las Vegas” production of Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera still outrages many.
Outer Burroughs
New York is different now, and John Zorn has this hangout, The Stone, on Avenue C (you heard me) at Second Street, a performance space the size of a largeish dorm room.
C’est une chanson d’amour qui somnole
What is surreal, symbolic, and generally mysterious in the dramatic arts can get a bad rap.
Mice mice baby
This “new-to-Chicago” production is a sheer pleasure from beginning to end.
Inappropriately touching
“Operatic” generally refers to sung drama, but there is another meaning of that term: grandiose, outsize, hysterical.
Starry starry night
Although the season is less than three weeks old, Metropolitan Opera audiences may hear nothing else this season as beautiful as Peter Mattei’s “Song to the Evening Star.”
Beyond the blue horizon
Besides the heavens and a sweater in The Devil Wears Prada, it is the hue of Hibla Gerzmava’s soprano, in contrast to the red or rose or red-orange voices of most sopranos.
Trapped in the web of love
Which operatic character could be best described as a spider?
Lady on demand
If you had told me 20 years ago that at some point in the future I would have over 550 of the Metropolitan Opera’s performances, audio and video, at my command with the touch of a button I would say my eulogy had just been read and I’d been taken to my reward.
Battle of the network tsars
For all their orchestral and vocal attractions, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 operas are rarities in the West.
Man of steel
“This throwback to the golden age of opera—superhuman singing greeted with frenzied ovations—was a function of a perfect storm of excitement.”
Fifty shades of Domingo
LA Opera opened their 30th season with a pairing of two of their most popular productions, both of which were initially staged by filmmakers not unfamiliar with the vagaries of our industry outpost here in Hollywoodland.
Don’t axe me why
The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
Bushwick leagues
LoftOpera is just one, though perhaps the liveliest, of many homegrown opera troupes in Brooklyn.
The gleam of his smile
A clearly moved Hvorostovsky basked in the moment and momentarily broke character to acknowledge the love.
The unanswered question
Would exciting American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke be the next great ice-princess we have been waiting for?
Awakenings
There is a simple elegance to the single-composer recital album format. For the listener in the mood for, say, Puccini, it’s a chance to delve into his music without any pesky interruptions by those other guys like Verdi or Massenet. And if one is also in the mood for a particular singer’s art, then the […]
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).