Avant de quitter la scène Avant de quitter la scène

As of late, the Bay Area has been blessed with a few high-wattage, high-profile recitals as if to compensate for the chilly temperatures and gloomy weather. Roughly a month after Lise Davidsen made an ebullient debut at Cal Performances, the Bay Area welcomed French soprano Natalie Dessay last Saturday.

Le jazz tiède Le jazz tiède

The crossover album: a hint that that an artist has either exhausted all the repertory at her command and owes her record label a new release or that her waning vocal resources really shouldn’t be taxed much further than an octave.

Savagery neglected

I’ll confess it. I am a bloodthirsty opera fan.  I’m not above judging the quality of a work by the size of the body count at the finale.  After sitting through Traviata or Boheme all evening I’m often disappointed when only one person dies in the last act. All the principals are dead at the…