(Photo Credit: NYU Skirball) “Tao of Glass,” starring actor and director Phelim McDermott with music by Philip Glass, premiered at NYU’s Skirball Theater this past week. I had the pleasure of attending the show on Friday, March 31st, 2023. Though the performance suffered from a technical malfunction—which I will address later in my article because it affected the performance—it is {…}
(Photo: ©Tristram Kenton) English National Opera haven’t had a live audience in their home at the London Coliseum since March 2020. But they’ve hardly been idle: their costume department made hospital scrubs, they devised a singing program for those suffering with “long COVID,” and performed “Tosca” and “La bohème” in striking outdoor settings. Their 2021-22 season opened last week with {…}
How do you get new audiences into the opera house? That question has puzzled companies for years as they try every trick in the book to bring millennials into the opera house. The art form, seemingly, depends on it. But the Scottish Opera tried a new tactic a year ago, and it’s bearing some fruit. Why not start the exposure {…}
It was intermission at the premiere of Phelim McDermott’s new Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart and Da Ponte’s “Così Fan Tutte” and someone made this statement to me. “It’s fun and everything, but why set it on Coney Island?” It’s a great point, but one could extrapolate that entire statement to the opera itself – “It’s got great music and {…}