Alan Gilbert is saying goodbye to the New York Philharmonic as music director. It ends a tenure that brought significant new works and experimented with the standard repertoire alongside one of the finest orchestras in the world. But Gilbert has made sure to make opera a mainstay for the New York Philharmonic so it is no surprise that he ends his {…}
How do you put on a gala? That is a question that most houses sometimes ask. Some think it is about uniting the most stars and having them walk on stage and just sing arias one after the other. Other houses put on different scenes from operas. Most recently we witnessed singers in costumes, standing and singing for over four {…}
Once again, San Francisco offers us an original, Opera Parallèle’s “Les Enfants Terribles” by celebrated American composer Philip Glass. In 1996, Glass adapted the story from the novel (1929) and film (1950) of the same name by the famous French artist and toast of the town Jean Cocteau, who himself took the myth of eternal youth as his starting point. Glass’s opera-ballet {…}
Mozart’s “Così fan tutte,” a drama giocoso in two acts, was performed in Geneva, Switzerland’s second-largest city, during the first half of May 2017 to popular and media acclaim. The staging, scenery, costumes, and accessories were produced entirely by the Grand Thèâtre de Genève, a pillar of the city’s bustling and diverse cultural life. Opera has thrived in Geneva since {…}
Let me preface this by saying that I love the Metropolitan Opera. It is my home opera house and OperaWire.com does not exist if not for the hundreds of nights spent at that house over the past decade. But it was truly disheartening this week to read that the company is still struggling to fill the theater. The New York {…}
The starting point for any production of Peter Grimes lies in the interpretation of the opera’s central character, namely Peter Grimes himself: to what extent should the audience be encouraged to view the anti-hero as an outsider, a victim of the underlying, but all-pervading intolerance and hypocrisy which saturates the Borough, rather than simply as a sadistic sociopath? Clearly, any {…}
It was one of New York City’s truly beautiful, spring days on May 14, 2017, which made it all the harder to leave the sun and enter into the glass lobby of the Alice Tully Recital Hall, but Carolyn Sampson was here to give a recital of her floral-themed program of art song, from her CD “Fleurs,” released in 2015. {…}
This is a review for the final performance of the run, which took place on May 12, 2017. The first opera I saw during the Metropolitan Opera’s 2016-17 season was Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” So it was only fitting that the last one I saw this season was “Der Fliegende Holländer,” the first to truly establish the composer as {…}
It was the day before the closing of the Metropolitan Opera’s season and Lincoln Center Plaza was packed like my previous rush hour transfer at Times Square. As dusk approached and the chandeliers began to glow, I made my way into, not the Met for the closing of “Der Fliegende Holländer,” but Koch Theater next door. Tonight was part of {…}