“Almost unbelievable crudity”
On this day in 1924, the Metropolitan Opera presented La bohème, a performance visiting critic Ernest Newman didn’t seem to like one bit.
Prince Igor
12 pieces since 2014.
12
pieces
13
years
The trouble with troubadours
Anita Rachvelishvili and Quinn Kelsey towered over an otherwise pedestrian if still exciting Il Trovatore.
Mister Fabulous, that’s you
Mr. Fabiano proceeded to pour gasoline over the audience and toss a lit match into the crowd with his rendition of “Granada.”
Battle of the network tsars
For all their orchestral and vocal attractions, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 operas are rarities in the West.
Be my guest!
James Levine turns 72 this year. Even though his health has improved considerably in the past year and he may continue to conduct for a decade or more, it seems inevitable that he will step down as the Met’s Music Director sometime in the next few years to assume the role of Conductor Laureate.
The year in Corwin
New York City isn’t a bad place to live, operatically-speaking.
The Night They Raided Rimsky’s
Opera-lovers who attend too much modern opera may find that it feels like duty.
Gee, our old Chagalls hang great
It’s time to bring out the canard again, this time a whole row of them in fact.
The Met: What is to be done?
Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
The Met: Can it be saved?
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
The Met: what’s really wrong?
The Met’s financial challenges are not meteorological, demographic, or cyclical; they are structural.
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).
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!
