Following a mixed premiere of “Samson et Delila,” the second evening of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2018-19 season saw a far more conventional and beloved work being performed, Puccini’s “La Bohème.” This opera is, unsurprisingly, the most performed of the company’s history, and that experience made itself clear throughout the night. Strong Debutante Making her debut with the company was Nicole {…}
Over the last few weeks, the Metropolitan Opera has hit one home run after another with news of a more accessible schedule structure as well as support for newer operas in new locations over coming seasons. These major stories have emphasized a new era, so to speak, for the company, and the organization has even baptized that progress with a {…}
Leonard Bernstein feared he would only be remembered for “West Side Story.” As theaters around the world celebrate the centenary of his birth, a range of his works have come back to the spotlight, but opera theaters have confirmed Bernstein’s fears. His only “true” operatic masterpiece, “A Quiet Place,” has received relatively scant attention. This is a shame, in part {…}
For many opera lovers appalled by the excesses of regie theater, concert performances are an appealing alternative. Singers standing in sackcloth and rags are infinitely preferable to Hans Neuenfels’ whisker-twitching “Lohengrin” rats or Claus Guth rocketing Rodolfo into outer-space in a South Park Kenny space suit. The problem is that as Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss wittily explained in “Capriccio,” opera has {…}
Teatro La Fenice certainly plays its part in making “La Traviata” the most oft-performed opera in the world. This season alone it will present 35 performances, with another 25 scheduled for next year. As in many houses, therefore, Verdi’s much loved opera forms part of the company’s staple repertoire. Obviously, an orchestra’s familiarity with a work may act as either {…}
Oklahoma City’s Painted Sky Opera opened its third season with a run of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and if the matinee I saw is any indication, the company is undoubtedly a vital addition to the regional opera scene. A group of talented young singers did Verdi’s chestnut justice and brought an eager audience to its feet. This production takes place in an {…}
The news that the Metropolitan Opera would be starting to present operas on Sunday afternoons came as a massive surprise for a number of reasons. On the one hand, the Met has never done this and has retained a rather conservative approach to its scheduling throughout its history. This, of course, is the result of the company working with a {…}
San Francisco Opera’s double bill of “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci” is fully set in the same neighborhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It opens with women shaking bedding from the windows, waiters straightening up the chairs from last night’s wine, lovers snatching their last kiss. The characters then emerged from it and sang the story; at the end, {…}
It is hard to imagine Russian music without Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Russian literature without poet Alexander Pushkin. Tchaikovsky’s opera “The Queen of Spades,” based on the eponymous novella by Pushkin, is one of the most important of the existing operas. Its beautiful and dark music leaves hardly any hope at the end, revealing a very fatalistic, and very Slavic, way {…}