“Parsifal. Parsifal.” Real? Dreamed? Which? In the opening of the Bayerische Staatsoper Opernfest 2018, we couldn’t tell. The new production by Pierre Audi and Georg Baselitz, which featured Jonas Kaufmann, René Pape, Christian Gerhahar, Nina Stemme, Wolfgang Koch, and conductor Kirill Petrenko, took us to a world far-beyond the drizzly night outside the doors, and watched a human and sacred {…}
So much is Don Juan’s tale the stuff of legend that it lends itself as easily to various interpretations as Greek myths. For every legendary story that encounters many incarnations – be it Tristan and Isolde’s love, Medea’s filicide or Romeo and Juliet – there comes a time when it is not only acceptable, but fascinating to encounter the familiar {…}
Beverly Sills once said the most challenging part of playing Baby Doe was making her likable from the start. The same might be said of the other main characters in Moore’s opera, all of whom are profoundly flawed and selfish. At the opener of this year’s Opera in the Ozarks production an excellent cast reveals all the good in what could {…}
This week, opera and Broadway star Paulo Szot returned to 54 Below for his eighth appearance in his show “Salute to Broadway.” The set list, music directed by Billy Stritch, drew upon songs that have played a formative role in Szot’s life and career as an artist, including songs he performed for the first time that evening. After a jazz {…}
When Dorothy arrived in Oz, she made the memorable comment “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.” Mega diva Joyce DiDonato’s first glimpse of the superb 6th century church of Aya Irini in the gardens of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul may well have elicited the same response. The operatic career of the former Joyce Flaherty from Prairie {…}
Britten’s War Requiem was written between 1961-1962, ostensibly in response to WW I, in the aftermath of WW II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all the many others. On June 25, 2018, at the Philharmonie, the Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Sir Anthony Pappano and accompanied by stellar opera singers and choruses, sang out against all war, then and {…}
As the Metropolitan Opera company’s Summer Recital Series rolls on, the artists and crew took to Williamsbridge Oval Park in the Bronx for an afternoon of arias, duets, and a trio from some of opera’s most cherished composers. Kicking things off was tenor Gerard Schneider, singing “Questa o quella” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” This amorous aria made for a spirited opening, {…}
It has been a particularly heavy season at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, with an absolutely splendid run of Marc Blitzstein’s “Regina” and the emotionally-charged world premiere of Huang Ruo’s “An American Soldier.” It was thus welcome that the final production to debut this season, Gluck’s “Orfeo and Euridice,” provided an uplifting ending. This production by director Ron Daniels, though {…}
Sir Simon Rattle is retiring from the Berlin Philharmonic. Saturday night at the Waldbuehne, Berlin, was one of the farewell concerts. This one included his wife as guest artist – the superb mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena. Despite the rain that drizzled on the 20,000+ people armed with blankets and ponchos, and its proximity to the concrete tower left over from the {…}