Supported by an ingenious production and strong performances, Antonia Bembo’s Ercole Amante makes a successful Paris Opera debut.
The Ralph Fiennes production of Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera is just…fine.
Les Arts Florissants present two ravishing programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
‘Comfort opera.’ Hmm… I had to give this one some thought.
Les Brigands at the Paris Opera is an expensive joke that never lands
A double bill of rare Bizet works in Paris is not something any of us needs to do more than once
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.
In French opera—until Pelleas et Mélisande anyway—there is always a great deal of dance; often, dance rather than song is the main event.
This review attempts to capture my ecstatic reactions to Contra-Tenor, one of the greatest recordings I’ve ever heard.
The always elegant Véronique Gens has recently returned often to her earliest roots in the French baroque.
People these days often exclaim “…..is everything!” but often it feels like gross hyperbole. But surely anyone who has seen Mark Morris’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato since it premiered in 1989 would agree that it is indeed everything!
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?”
While seasonally-awkward streams of Messiah abound, Trove Thursday turns instead to Berlioz’s exquisite L’Enfance du Christ from francophone forces including Stéphanie d’ Oustrac, Bernard Richter, Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Nicolas Testé (for once, sans sa femme).
While isolated opera-lovers intently navigate the deluge of streaming videos being made available, I’ve been listening rather than viewing.
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.
A double-barreled “Trove Thursday” birthday salute to Renée Fleming who turns 60 today.
I had my head in my hands groaning in disbelief instead of joining in the general applause around me.
“Trove Thursday” celebrates the thrilling Finnish soprano Karita Matilla in the ultimate diva role.
Can a surfeit of pleasure become—in the end—unsatisfying?
Sunday afternoon’s all-Richard Strauss concert served as a de facto commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the debut of Renée Fleming, long one of the house’s biggest stars.
I was, to my astonishment, quite bored.
Jean-Philippe Rameau was nearly 80 when he composed his final masterpiece Les Boréades, but it had to wait over 200 years to reach the stage.
The Deutsche Opera an Rhein production of Handel’s Xerxes (which is shared with the Berlin Komische Oper), though I saw it three nights ago, has taken a while to settle down in my brain.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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