A springtime baroque bouquet
Christopher Corwin picks the flowers of a baroque May in New York City with reviews of concerts starring Lauren Snouffer, Key’mon Murrah, and the Oratorio Society of New York.
Iphigénie en Tauride
43 pieces since 2011.
43
pieces
16
years
Crete-ed rivalry
Soprano Amanda Forsythe as Ilia and tenor David Portillo in the titular role were highlights of Washington Concert Opera’s robust Idomeneo.
The best thing I saw in 2025 was Stiffelio
Looking back, this Stiffelio in Piacenza is the one I cherish the most.
By Placido Carrerotti
Comment
I listen to the wind of my soul
Washington Concert Opera began its 39th season last month with Christoph Willibald Gluck’s late masterpiece Iphigénie en Tauride.
Change my mind about how Orfeo should end
By giving Orfeo ed Euridice a happy ending, Gluck ruined a wonderful score.
By John Yohalem
131 comments
Those in glass houses
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées surpasses even Nigel Wilkinson‘s high ‘WTF threshhold’
Promising young women
Ahead of her return to the Met, soprano Corinne Winters chats with Kevin Ng about her repertoire, overcoming biases about her voice type, and how she plans to play “energetic, young women” as long as she can.
Brain Wurm
By the time the curtain rose on Verdi’s Luisa Miller last Sunday in Washington Concert Opera’s final show of the season, the originally announced line-up was about as accurate as a federal agency org chart from February.
Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’
Eli Jacobson inaugurates parterre box’s new “Perspectives on the Aria” feature with a deep dive into Leonore’s “Abscheulicher!” from Beethoven’s Fidelio which returns to the Metropolitan Opera tomorrow with the Met’s current dramatic soprano star Lise Davidsen as Leonore.
We’re the kids in America
Needing a Mozart palate-cleanser after the recent misbegotten Marriage of Figaro, I went back more than two decades for a Houston Così fan Tutte featuring then-rising Americans Christine Goerke, Joyce Di Donato, Richard Croft, and Nathan Gunn as the confused lovers.
Je sens une force nouvelle
Chris’s Cache offers three striking interpretations of another Gluck masterpiece Alceste from Janet Baker, Anna Caterina Antonacci, and Véronique Gens
My dinner with Aeschylus
Having had many memorable encounters with these characters before, I had been looking forward to encountering them again in an ambitious contemporary Oresteia, but I left the Armory feeling that writer-director Robert Icke just didn’t get it.
Tauride zone
This week Trove Thursday presents Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride in three stirring broadcasts starring Rita Gorr, Gré Brouwenstijn and Sena Jurinac
Two by two
Were Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne 20th century opera’s ultimate same-sex pairing?
High ‘Society’
Off-and-on since last fall my PPP (Personal Pandemic Project) has been assembling a chronology of the American Opera Society. For 19 years beginning in 1951 it presented a remarkable series of concert performances of works unperformed by either the Met or New York City Opera.
Fairies at the bottom of our Wagner
Ordinarily we’d be listening to Bayreuth Festival broadcasts this week but instead Trove Thursday steps up with a true Wagner rarity: Die Feen from the Wiener Staatsoper starring as Ada, the fairy in love with a mortal, Gundula Janowitz, who turns 83 on Sunday.
One night only
Christine Goerke‘s distracted, tentative Isolde turned out to be the least potent feature of what was an otherwise exciting and effective second act of Tristan.
Drag me to hell
My first-ever Met Sunday opera brought the welcome return of Gluck’s sublime Orfeo ed Euridice in an enchanting afternoon that combined elegant conducting, joyous dancing and Jamie Barton’s extraordinary hero.
An old-fashioned wedding
“Trove Thursday” presents a complete Prodanà Nevesta (aka Die Verkaufte Braut, of course) by Smetana plus extended excerpts from a broadcast of Spontini’s La Vestale in its rarely heard original French version.
Cryptic
Hearing Lucas Meachem perform Kindertotenlieder in the crypt of Harlem’s Church of the Intercession was a heart-warming, and ultimately uplifting experience.
Three more times!
The long evening didn’t achieve the degree of celebration it should have.
A little priestess
Ars Minerva upped their game by mounting an 18th century baroque opera, Giovanni Porta’s 1738 Ifigenia in Aulide.
I put a spell on you
Armide with a superbly grand Francophone heroine in Karina Gauvin and conducted by the always excellent Ivor Bolton.
More than words
This week’s star-spangled “Trove Thursday” offers the second crazy-quilt installment of divas in the wrong language.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
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).
