Maximalism was on the menu last weekend at the Philadelphia Orchestra.
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The Metropolitan Opera chose the early August operatic doldrums in NYC to announce the renewal of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s contract as music director through the 2029-30 season.
Lise Davidsen will sing Brünhilde in the Met’s new Yuval Sharon-directed and Nézet-Séguin-conducted Ring Cycle starting in 2027-28 and culminating in 2030
On June 11th, the Met Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall with a diverse program led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Opera took center stage on the final weekend of the Philadelphia Orchestra season.
When the Staatskapelle Berlin announced a two-night engagement at Carnegie Hall performing all four Brahms symphonies, I immediately made a note in my calendar to attend. I also wondered who would be the conductor when the announced Daniel Barenboim inevitably withdrew.
One got a sense that the Met and the maestro directed most of the rehearsal and preparation toward the opening night premiere of the Heggie opus
So, give me three good reasons we should not hear Jamie Barton as the mother of Salomé?
Perhaps the quirkiest of Mahler’s nine symphonies, the Fourth fits nicely with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s somewhat idiosyncratic style.
The film of The Hours failed to effectively weave together the novel’s trio of threads of interiority about suicide and secondarily literary creation. I wondered if an opera would stand a better chance at achieving that? Based on Tuesday’s diva-encrusted stage premiere of Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce’s The Hours, its creators didn’t pull it off either.
To conclude its triumphant season, last week the Met Orchestra performed its annual Carnegie Hall concerts under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and once again performed superbly.
No, we don’t really need another “Orpheus” opera. Or, rather, we don’t need this one.
With composer Terence Blanchard and librettist Kasi Lemmons‘ incendiary Fire Shut Up in My Bones, the Met makes long overdue history and Will Liverman ascends to superstardom.
This was a great and happy event, but it wasn’t so much a musical one.
New productions of Aida, Die Zauberflöte, and Don Giovanni and Met premieres of The Fiery Angel and Dead Man Walking headline the Metropolitan Opera’s 2020–21 season.
Joyce DiDonato’s take on Winterreise is a conceptual misstep that, song after song, frustratingly dilutes and distracts from an often rewarding musical performance.
Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, always with a gift for gab, is ever more loquacious in concerts, often talking directly to the audience.
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s opening night concert, for better or worse, was not a gala evening starring Plácido Domingo.
“Die Zauberflöte is an opera!” “No, it’s the first musical comedy!”
With the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Candide, they saved the best (of all possible worlds) for last.
Elina Garanca was radiantly present at Carnegie Hall Friday night performing a ravishingly somber Rückert-Lieder with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the MET Orchestra.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s “Music of Faith” with the Philadelphia Orchestra was a sensational concert, perhaps the best I’ve heard in more than a season.
Our Own Joel Rozen in Slate ponders the good gay vs. bad gay politics of Zachary Woolfe‘s New York Times celebration of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Now, you would think nothing could please gaycentric La Cieca more than yesterday’s New York Times profile of the Met’s new music director…
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