Bloodless revolution Bloodless revolution

Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung at Canadian Opera Company deliver on fine performances even if Robert Lepage‘s production skimps on horror.

I’m still thinking about George Tabori’s <em>Pagliacci</em> I’m still thinking about George Tabori’s <em>Pagliacci</em>

I love Tabori—his staging of Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung are among my five favorite opera performances of all time.

The Aix factor The Aix factor

This summer’s festival, taking place amid record high temperatures and in the wake of its artistic director, Pierre Audi, featured a disquietingly zeigeisty focus on sexual violence.

Walking through the valley of death Walking through the valley of death

Peter Sellars‘s triple bill of Viennese modernism featuring Erwartung and a concert performance of The Raft of the Medusa stare down death at the Salzburg Festival

Stage animal control Stage animal control

Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.

<em>Macabre</em> fascination <em>Macabre</em> fascination

Can György Ligeti‘s only opera be understood as the composer’s own grappling with trauma, death, and memory of a past life?

Psychological projections Psychological projections

“The distance between dreams and reality is called action.” – Brian Tracy

Women on the verge of a nervous breakup Women on the verge of a nervous breakup

Not in my wildest dreams could I have come up with anything more homosexual than the sight of Almodóvar muse Rossy de Palma in a stage-length wedding gown onstage Madrid’s Teatro Real.

Color me impressed Color me impressed

Bay Area audiences starved for vocal fare during its opera’s winter/spring hiatus recently experienced two exceptional concerts with distinguished singing at the Davies Symphony Hall.

Bored to death Bored to death

Trove Thursday offers Shostakovich’s 1962 Katerina Izmailova with Australian soprano Marie Collier as its anti-heroine and Jon Vickers as her lover.

A radical participatory platform A radical participatory platform

The opera’s radical vision lay in its enormous scale, which encompassed a hundred-strong community chorus taken from the ranks of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Master Voices.

Wait and see Wait and see

Erwartung and Bluebeard’s Castle returned to Lincoln Center Thursday night in a musically scintillating if theatrically mild double-bill by the New York Philharmonic.

Trouble in Thebes Trouble in Thebes

What to do with all those glorious short operas: play them alone or find companion pieces?

Between two worlds 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.

In Bruges In Bruges

They say that Boston, despite many cultural distinctions, ain’t no opera town, and for some decades—generations?—this has been true. But tides of change will break, even on the shores of the Hub.

Rex appeal Rex appeal

Say this about Oedipus: The character’s got staying power.

Silvery Moon

The Berlin Philharmonic brought a spooky Halloween treat to New York on Thursday night, just a few days late. They are at Carnegie Hall for a three-night residency, offering the complete Brahms symphonies along with selected earlier works by that ugly duckling of Brahms disciples, Arnold Schoenberg. They are also far from home during Berlin’s…