(Photo: Marco Montero) Every Friday, Polina Lyapustina delivers a short essay on some of the most sensitive topics in the industry with the intent of establishing a dialogue about the opera world and its future. Opera in Italy today is going through tough times, and not only because of the pandemic. Both smaller and larger institutions are being left to survive {…}
The joined forces by librettist Aiden K. Feltkamp and composer Rosśa Crean brings the incredible story of Gertrud Günther (also known as Marie Madeleine) on a stage for the first time in the monodrama, called the “The Priestess of Morphine: The Lost Writings of Marie-Madeleine.” Premiered on June 28, 2019, in the International Museum of Surgical Science, opera was soon {…}
(Photo: Anna Cillan) Coming back for more Haymarket performances, after the astonishing “Acis and Galatea” presented this late autumn, was both exciting and a little jittery. The concept of Haymarket season as announced was very integral. The audience would be presented with three filmed performances of Handel’s operas, produced in collaboration with Resolution Studios, in a set designed by Zuleyka {…}
Every Friday, Polina Lyapustina delivers an essay on some of the most sensitive topics in the industry with the intent of establishing a dialogue about the opera world and its future. Every year, Spring reminds us that it’s time to throw off all the heavy thoughts collected during the cold winter months. And now, we need it like never before, since {…}
What is most remarkable about this production of “Le Comte Ory” is that it even took place at all. The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is one of the only opera houses in the world to continue to mount staged performances, not just in streaming but before a live audience. Doing so requires important changes and strict precautions: the start time of {…}
Every Friday, Polina Lyapustina delivers a short essay on some of the most sensitive topics in the industry with the intent of establishing a dialogue about the opera world and its future. The last few weeks were noisy on the battlefield between Gelb and the unions representing the rights of the Met Opera workers: Peter Gelb continued unveiling future plans for Metropolitan {…}
An aesthetic outlier in the grand tradition of Italian opera, “La Fanciulla del West” occupies a singular position both historically and within the growing catalog of Pentatone’s multichannel audio recordings. The Dutch label proposes two contrasting takes on Puccini’s tale of the Wild West; a remastered version of the DG classic (with Carol Neblett’s magisterial Minnie) and its most recent {…}
(Photo: Azat Satlykov) Every Friday, Polina Lyapustina delivers a short essay on some of the most sensitive topics in the industry with the intent of establishing a dialogue about the opera world and its future. On February 9, violinist Misha Nodelman recorded and published the Musicians’ Open Letter on the Eve of the Civil War, addressed to the Russian Government. {…}
Every Friday, Polina Lyapustina delivers a short essay on some of the most sensitive topics in the industry with the intent of establishing a dialogue about the opera world and its future. “Real music is right in the heart of what we struggle. Our task is not to be a leisure activity, but to go the places where no political {…}