Grail mix
Contemporary stagings of Parsifal tend to be spare, abstract affairs scrubbed of religious associations, knights in armor and, sometimes, a grail.
Review
Henry, sweet Henry
Although she began her career nearly 25 years ago recording and performing lots of baroque music, I was surprised to see German soprano Dorothea Röschmann promoted as the star attraction of an all-Purcell concert Sunday at Carnegie Hall.
Sometimes just pretzels and beer
Our Own JJ crunches the numbers at the Met and LoftOpera in the New York Observer.
A monster, without being a myth
Before this recording arrived in my mailbox, I: ( a) didn’t know there was an operatic version of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, one of my favorite plays; and (b) was unfamiliar with the works of composer Gerald Berry. After several hearings, I’m still not convinced that there is an operatic version of Earnest. […]
Berlin im Licht
Coming from placid, luxurious Geneva, where I am currently living, Berlin felt even more jarring than usual.
Oh, de’ verdi anni miei
“The Met’s revival of Verdi’s Ernani Friday night was every inch a tragic opera, though without being grand in any way. Its grisliest calamity was not the one the composer devised but rather one the production’s star, Plácido Domingo, brought on himself.”
Between two worlds
If works like Salome and Erwartung defined modernism in the first decades of the 20th century, Die Tote Stadt and Palestrina represented the regressive avant garde.
Mais nous voyons à nouveau La Carmencita
The opening night of the Metropolitan Opera of September 1972 was supposed to be the dawn of a new era.
Text appeal
What makes Norma such a high-profile role in the soprano repertory?
The kids are not all right
“’They’re young… they’re in love… and they kill people’ goes the tagline for the 1968 film Bonnie and Clyde, but the slogan could apply almost as well to the outlaw pair at the center of the Metropolitan Opera’s white-hot revival of Massenet’s Manon.”
Plain and simple
“Michael Volle is not into bling,” begins an article in ACT-O, the glossy magazine of the Grand Théâtre de Genève.
Magic “Flute”
A confession: I have a real love/ hate relationship with Mozart’s Die Zauberflote.
Dongs of mirth and triumph sing!
Donkey dick and other Asian Fusion vaudeville acts arouse “The BAM Effect” at Handel’s Semele.
The devil is in the details
Certain operas are better in theory than practice.
Coming out
Christian Thielemann’s spirited, precise conducting and the superb, sumptuous playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden are the finest features of this strongly cast performance of Strauss’s Arabella.
My name is Barbiere
James Conlon, Music Director for the LA Opera, often does the pre-game lecture in the huge open space on the second floor lobby of the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion and it’s almost always a standing room only crowd.
Fresh princes
Imagine two tenors releasing French opera aria collections at the same time without duplicating a single track!
Trigger warning
The Rape of Lucretia, now (through Sunday) enjoying a superb three-performance run at the Juilliard Opera’s Willson Theater (tickets are scarce; hie thee to the waiting list), was Benjamin Britten’s third opera and first “chamber opera,” composed for the tiny original theater at Glyndebourne,
Star, crossed
The key to enjoying Bellini’s I Capuleti e Montechi is to do a hard factory reset and reformat your brain to forget all other works based on Romeo and Juliet.
Queen sized
The last day of December a parcel arrived in the mail containing an absolute delight: “Semiramide—La Signora Regale.” One of best vocal recordings of 2014, this sumptuous 2-CD set on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi features the marvelous Italian mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus and includes 90 minutes of rarely-heard music written for the legendary Babylonian queen.
Singular sensation
“If Mozart had only had the sense to write Don Giovanni in a… single-performer format, last Wednesday’s revival at the Met would have been one for the ages.
Mourning becomes Iphigenia
Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide (1774), the occasion of his Paris debut, gets far less respect than her sequel, Iphigénie en Tauride.
Table bodied
Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Drop dead diva
My first experience with John Corigliano’s music was in high school with the ear and mind blowing score he wrote for Ken Russell’s film Altered States.