The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Der Rosenkavalier” by Robert Carsen is as high stakes as it gets these days for the company in both the short and long-term view. In the short-term view, this production is the punctuation on the current season, its final new staging. It will also be the final HD performance of the season, and more {…}
When attending a performance of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at one of the world’s top opera houses one would be very surprised to find a Lucia who is not up to the job. We are, in fact, blessed with an array of professional singers who are well equipped to perform the role to the requisite standard but finding one who can {…}
I am going to be rather forward with you. This analysis of Wednesday’s “Don Giovanni” at the Metropolitan Opera will kick off on a positive note before turning a bit sour in tone. But lo and behold, after that, I am going to return to my boyish enthusiasm for what I experienced at the opening of this revival run. The {…}
For years Natalie Dessay dominated the operatic scene with her charisma, acting chops, and virtuosic voice. But in 2013, the French soprano quit the operatic scene and dedicated herself to recitals, plays, and musicals. The soprano has been outspoken for her displeasure of the opera world and her critics have noted that she no longer had a voice to sing {…}
At the turn of the 20th century, Victor Herbert was widely regarded as a major composer making his mark with dozens and dozens of operettas. But the last century hasn’t always been kind to the Irish-American composer, many of his works getting largely ignored in the opera world. But for the last few years, the Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE! {…}
Making your way to an evening at the opera, you pass through Prague’s medieval, cobblestone streets. In the distance, sets the orange, Bohemian sun behind the black silhouette of Prague Castle. Now descending into a cellar, you’ll find yourself in the theater lobby, packing your hands with Czech beer and awaiting the opening notes of the longest running production of {…}
Friday night at the Metropolitan Opera was the last time that audiences would get a chance to see Willy Decker’s production of Verdi’s “La Traviata.” The powerful vision that first came to see the light of the world in Salzburg over 10 years ago is in and of itself a long goodbye, an intricate look at how a woman says {…}
In the last half century, Gustav Mahler has become arguably the most widely recorded composer in the world of classical music. His music is a deeply personal experience for the truest of Mahlerites, who while open to new interpretations, remain steadfast in their devotion to their all-time favorites. No two recordings of a Mahler work are anywhere close to similar. {…}
Where one would expect the operatic double bill of “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci,” Teatro Comunale di Bologna instead opened last night’s double bill with Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” and Mascagni’s ever-famous verismo opera, “Cavalleria Rusticana,” appropriately placed with the approaching Easter season. La Voix Humaine “Voix Humaine,” set to music from Cocteau’s play of the same name, is described as {…}