Bettina Stöß

Grand Tier Grab Bag

Closer to fine

Grand Tier Grab Bag looks forward to a big week for Umberto Giordano by sharing Sondra Radvanovsky and Gregory Kunde performing the final duet from Andrea Chénier.

Feature

Everything is “and,” not “or”

James Gaffigan, the incoming Music Director of Houston Grand Opera, strikes a balance between New World precision and Old World flair in repertoire, staging, and wine

Image courtesy of HowlAria

Feature

Animal house

Ursula Sturgeon looks at the furry opera company HowlAria and discovers that maybe one man’s Callas recording collection is another man’s fursuit.

Jonathan Tichler/MetOpera

Grand Tier Grab Bag

On the chase

Grand Tier Grab Bag marks the Metropolitan Opera return of Daniele Rustioni with a zippy performance of the Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens recorded in 2022 in Munich.

Peter van Heesen

Alien encounter

“Protect the dolls, they say, but who really cares for them?” This question, posed by performer Mara Snip during the postlude of Neuköllner Oper’s 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, had a clear answer: Aliens.

Photo: Bernd Uhlig

Scarcity mindset

Michael Thalmeier's Tristan und Isolde in Berlin asks, how much minimalism is too much minimalism?

Raftermen for The Atlanta Opera

Do the locomotion

As my friend and I Ubered out to the luxurious Cobb Energy Centre for Atlanta Opera’s La traviata, I had trains on the mind.

© Vincent Pontet

Damned to hell

Only the singers, led by Benjamin Bernheim, can salvage a dismal La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.

I’m still thinking about Hans Neuenfels’s Lohengrin

Who are the rats? Why are their tails getting longer? Is Lohengrin a rat trying to free himself from a maze?

I’m still thinking about Bob Wilson’s Le trouvère

At every turn, the preconceived notion of Trovatore was denied, right down to the boxing during the ballet.

I’m still thinking about David McVicar’s Giulio Cesare

With Cesare's old-school rules of war set spinning by Cleopatra's Bollywood-inspired manipulations, a Da Capo aria has never felt more dangerous

I’m still thinking about Barrie Kosky’s Dialogues des Carmélites

Barrie Kosky's incredible production widened and universalized the ending.

I’m still thinking about John Dexter’s Dialogues of the Carmelites

The opening of John Dexter's production of The Dialogues of the Carmelites (originally produced in English) is one of the most arresting and memorable images I have ever seen.