Photo Credit: Catherine Hancock Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) opened its 14th season with “Circles I: Clara, Robert & Johannes” on Friday, October 6th 2023 to an audience of engaged listeners and avid art song lovers. Artistic director Michael Brofman welcomed everyone and introduced Dean Whiteside of the Goethe-Institute for his pre-concert lecture pertaining to the intimate details behind some {…}
The vocal music scene in Boston is not bad, but it is far from vibrant. Vocalists do the best they can. But there are few operas, especially for a city that has a big-five orchestra. This is one of the reasons why Handel and Haydn Society’s “Israel in Egypt” was a highly anticipated event. In his first performance as artistic {…}
(Credit: Royal Opera) I suppose anything with “Destiny” in the title will always be a bit profound. In fact, “La Forza” is about as profound and gloomy, if not downright dark as it gets, even by Verdi’s standards. At around four and a half hours, it’s also his longest work. It’s a story of love, death, and revenge. Mainly revenge. {…}
(Credit: Marty Sohl / Met Opera) “Nabucco” returned to the Metropolitan Opera after a seven-year absence. The opera was set to return during the 2020-21 season but was canceled due to the pandemic. Now Verdi’s early gem is finally back in the company’s legendary Elijah Moshinsky production that has become emblematic of the Met’s grandeur and its gorgeous tableaus. Having {…}
(Photo: ENO’s Peter Grimes 2023 © Tom Bowles) David Alden’s “Peter Grimes” begins with the curtain up. Upstage the people of the Borough mill about restlessly, occasionally breaking into shouts of anger and impatience. Alden’s 2009 production, on its second revival, breaks with any wistful or bucolic notions about the seaside community of the Borough, who drive the equally unrelenting {…}
Photo credit: © Richard Brusky “Behold the Man” made its world premiere at the Nicholas J. Horn Theatre for Opera Las Vegas’ 25th season on September 30th and October 1st, 2023. What began as a curious and fun project between creative team members, composer Paul Fowler, librettist Andrew Flack and producer Barbara Duff, has now evolved into something beyond their {…}
In the second cast of the Teatro Real de Madrid’s “Medea,” Saioa Hernandez proved a revelation. Her dramatic instrument with a bright dark timbre, her expansive vibrato, her thunderous high register, her sonorous low register in chest voice, and her fluid vocal line make her ideal for this role. Medea’s writing is mostly central, we could even say that it {…}
Photo credit: © Dominique Jaussein The Opéra de Nice Côte d’Azur inaugurated their 2023-2024 season with a new staging of Léo Delibe’s “Lakmé” coproduced with the Opéra-Comique in Paris, which premiered the production in September-October 2022, and the Opéra national du Rhin which will present performances in Mulhouse and Strasbourg in November 2023. Pelly’s Anti-Kitsch ‘Lakmé’ This coproduction marks the {…}
(Photo credit: Raftermen/courtesy of The Atlanta Opera) Atlanta Opera gave a skillful East Coast premiere of Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s “The Shining.” As most are familiar with the plot of Stephen King’s 1977 novel, “The Shining,” from the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film, I will not recount the storyline. However, it is important to mention the operatic version is based {…}