Though, really, the young artists of the Merola Opera Program were more than alright in their annual showcase.
Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s production of Der Freischütz in Munich may fire a few blanks, but the musicians are all on target.
Yuval Sharon‘s production of The Excursions of Mr. Brouček shoots for the moon — and lands somewhat limply on Lake Constance.
Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
Dull conducting makes Der Freischütz miss its mark at Carnegie Hall.
American tenor Charles Castronovo performs a bit of Weber’s Der Freischütz ahead of the opportunity to hear Berlioz‘s take on the score at Carnegie Hall next week.
Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s? For Wagner Month, Chris’s Cache offers the unexpected collaboration Die drei Pintos, started by Wagner-predecessor Carl Maria von Weber and completed by one of Wagner’s followers, Gustav Mahler
The return of Cherubini‘s Medée to the Opéra Comique may be a homecoming, but Nigel Wilkinson almost went home at intermission.
Nothing says “diva” like an insane recital program.
A revival of Peter Konwitschny’s rightly legendary Don Carlos and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s confounding new Salome: both turned out to be unforgettable!
Chris’s Cache offers up a quintet of intriguing “forgotten” Leonora-Azucena pairings from the 1970s.
Yuval Sharon at Boston Lyric Opera has brilliantly found an interpretative middle ground for La bohème by presenting the acts in reverse order.
Trove Thursday previews next week’s BBC Proms presentation of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with a 2008 broadcast conducted by Colin Davis with Sarah Connolly, Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley.
This Traviata remained firmly Beltway-bound and by the time I had gotten home, the 45-minute traffic jam to leave the parking lot was eminently fresher in my mind than the evening’s performance.
Director R.B. Schlather deftly walks a porous boundary, casting this primordial paroxysm of Germanness as a dialogue between its naïve and moralistic narrative with its outsized legacy.
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.
Nathan Hull was an operatic Quixote who did not go it alone, but inspired bands of optimists, giving proper employment to the many worthy New Yorkers mad enough to study voice and pleasure rare elsewhere to those of us thrilled to take it in.
Wagner must intrude at some point because he invented film music.
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
Heartbeat Opera has set Der Freischütz in a contemporary era, in a rural locale where gun culture reigns supreme and bullying is natural.
Utopia Opera is fond of the less well known branches of the Savoy repertory (as the company name suggests), and is currently (through next weekend) doing a job on an early and rare bird of the flock, The Sorcerer.
Celebrating its third anniversary and next week’s Met opening, “Trove Thursday” offers a sumptuous banquet of the third and final chapter of divas in the “wrong language.”
This week’s star-spangled “Trove Thursday” offers the second crazy-quilt installment of divas in the wrong language.
Siegfried is, in a sense, The Ring’s odd one out.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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