(Photo: Guergana Damianova) There is a question that has tormented opera fanatics for at least a century: how can opera go on? What sound represents the future of opera? While many, especially in the mid-20th century, leaned toward musicality that was either dramatically disruptive or staunchly conservative, Stravinsky forged a career where he managed to be both. In a world {…}
(Photo: Marek Olbrzymek) “Every stage work takes on new meanings with each new interpretation.” So reads the opening line of the program notes by dramaturg Marta Ljubková, writing about Janáček Brno Festival’s production of “Jenůfa.” She was being somewhat disingenuous. What was presented was not a change in emphasis or an exploration of hidden themes; rather, it was a heavy-handed {…}
(Photo by : Herwig Prammer) In 1857, when the Teatro San Carlo in Naples commissioned a new opera from Giuseppe Verdi, he selected a libretto by Antonio Somma, inspired by the real-life assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden. The king was shot in 1792 by political opponents during a masked ball at the Stockholm Opera. Somma added a romantic {…}
On November 21, 2024, Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle hosted the opening concert of the five-day Viva Napoli festival, featuring the modern premiere of Leonardo Vinci’s Oratorio per la Madonna del Rosario after three hundred years’ obscurity. Composed for the annual Rosary Sunday celebrations established by Pope Gregory XIII to commemorate the Holy League’s 1571 victory over the Ottomans at Lepanto, Vinci’s Oratorio {…}
(Photos: Marty Sohl / Met Opera) The Metropolitan Opera’s “La Bohème” celebrated a new season of success thanks to Kensho Watanabe at the podium and a stunning cast of favorites, including Ailyn Pérez, Dmytro Popov, Boris Pinkhasovich, Bogdan Talos, Emily Pogorelc, Gihoon Kim, and Donald Maxwell. Conductor Kensho Watanabe’s Midas Touch Conductor Kensho Watanabe, who made his Met debut with {…}
With Bellini’s “I Puritani” one steps into the heartland of Italian bel canto: The ensembles are mesmerizingly beautiful, the vocal lines infinitely refined, and the orchestration – with its mood painting role – proves a proto-dramatic foundation to the unfolding of the Romantic intrigue, prone to inspiring the operatic vocabulary of subsequent generations, and of Verdi in particular. Needless to {…}
Image courtesy of Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Jay Patel. With “Die Walküre,” the second opera of Richard Wagner’s four-opera “Ring” cycle, the epic plot comes down to the human level, having begun in the first opera, “Das Rheingold,” in the realm of gods (albeit flawed), Rhinemaidens, giants, and other immortals. This November 15 and 17’s performances of “Die Walküre” in {…}
(Photo: Zani-Casadio) Following on from the previous day’s performance of Monteverdi’s “Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria,” Ravenna’s Teatro Alighieri continued with a production of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” coupled with “Hail, Bright Cecelia,” presented by the same cast under the musical direction of Ottavio Dantone. The fact that Pier Luigi Pizzi, who had been responsible for the lackluster staging {…}
For the first generation of singers who traveled to China in 2011, I SING BEIJING was something new and adventurous, but also a bit of a lark. That has changed over the intervening years. On November 2, 2024, the iSING! Festival, as it is now known, and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed under the baton of Marin Alsop at Beijing’s National {…}