As we reach the end of “Bass Month” I’d like to call attention to the superb American Gregory Reinhart who particularly shone in music by Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Back to Rameau again this week with Samson at the Opéra Comique, my third Rameau production in as little as three months, after Les Fêtes d’Hébé in the same house, and Castor et Pollux at the Palais Garnier.
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
Nigel Wilkinson reports on Teodor Curentzis and Peter Sellars‘s new production of Rameau‘s Castor et Pollux in Paris.
What can you say, other than that everything was fab?
Final opera of the season. Little-known opera. A revival. So, you can probably skip it, right?
Two of France’s leading Early Music ensembles recently visited New York City to perform music by some of the 17th century’s leading composers.
For those who complain (not entirely unfairly) that Handel operas are “just a string of da capo arias,” I sometimes mutter to myself, “Have they ever tried Rameau?”
Dancing sheep! Flying sheep! Flying sheep who dance!
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt is an irresistibly self-absorbed sea-nymph in Rameau’s Platée which also features a dazzling star-turn by Mireille Delunsch as La Folie.
On the day of the Super Bowl, I attended a near-sold-out screening of the Paris Opéra’s recent production of Rameau’s 1735 opéra-ballet Les Indes galantes at New York’s Alliance Française.
The Paris Opera assembled an all-French cast to stage arguably the most well-known example of opéra-ballet, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes.
“Trove Thursday” presents for the third annual installment of “Handel for my Birthday” a wickedly ideal Felicity Palmer dominating Agrippina.
The most disappointing performance in 30 otherwise glorious years of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants visiting New York City.
Although she didn’t sing that eponymous song by Reynaldo Hahn at Weill Recital Hall Thursday evening, Sabine Devieilhe did offer an “exquisite hour” of early 20th century French songs.
Sometimes the fates conspire, preventing an artist from recording the role for which he is his generation’s touchstone.
Can a surfeit of pleasure become—in the end—unsatisfying?
I was, to my astonishment, quite bored.
America hasn’t exactly been vigorous about commemorating the 250th anniversary of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau.
I avoided visiting any waxworks establishment until On Site Opera’s lively production of Rameau’s one-act Pygmalion summoned me Tuesday evening to Madame Tussauds just off New York City’s Times Square.
What must have raced through the mind of the none-too-comely Spanish Infanta when she learned that the opera to be performed during the celebrations for her 1745 wedding to the French Dauphin revolved around the comeuppance of an ugly yet vain water nymph tricked into believing Jupiter was her ardent suitor?
Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce DiDonato are not the only ladies who have recorded recitals this year featuring music from the 17th and 18th centuries.
The New Year’s Eve gala at the Met ushering out 2011 was the world premiere of the much-anticipated mash-up The Enchanted Island AKA “baroque opera for those who hate (or at least don’t know) baroque opera.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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