(Credit: Marty Sohl / Metropolitan Opera) John Dexter’s production of “Dialogues des Carmélites” remains one of the treasures of the Met stage. Especially during a time when directors are bringing rather bland new productions to timeless classics, here’s a staging that is both traditional in its concept and imagery, but simultaneously modern in its economy of execution. Black and white {…}
This review is for the performance on Jan. 17, 2023. Having lived in Paris for a while, I can say I have more than once seen a stage director booed. Once, a conductor was vaguely disproved of by few operagoers. But until tonight, I have never seen a soprano booed so virulently as Parisians jeered Mary Elizabeth Williams’ Isolde. Why {…}
In line with their commitment to promote the works of unrecorded and near-forgotten composers, the forces of the British Toccata Music Group have, since 2017, dedicated their attention to Richard Flury, a “Swiss Romantic” (as the title of Chris Walton’s biography reads) and creator of four operas written in truly eclectic and, to some extent, anachronistic fashion. “Der schlimm-heilige Vitalis” {…}
(Photo credit: Keith Saunders) The designation of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto for Mozart’s 1787 opera “Don Giovanni” is “dramma giocosa” – that is, playful or jocular drama. However, Don Giovanni (aka the legendary Don Juan) roamed Europe seducing women (2,065 of them by calculation of the servant Leporello in Mozart’s version of the tale), and the 19th century’s Romantics saw {…}
On Jan. 2, 2023, American soprano Nadine Sierra outshone the rest of the cast of “La Sonnambula” due to her beautiful dark Lirico-leggera voice, her incredible thrilling high notes up to high F, a piercing projection and a strong, believable characterization of the weak Bellini heroine. Despite of her astonishing higher register, her voice is bigger and darker than the {…}
(Credit: Marty Sohl / Met Opera) Last month the Metropolitan Opera opened its final run of Sonja Frisell’s legendary “Aida” staging. The production, which opened in 1988, remains somewhat of a splendor for its lush and detailed sets. As I noted in my recent review, I have never been the biggest fan of this particular mise-en-scène, but on this revival, {…}
On Jan. 7, 2023, iSing Suzhou, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Asian Performing Arts Council presented “Echoes of Ancient Tang Poems” at Alice Tully Hall. The event, in celebration of the Lunar New Year, was the culmination of a compositional competition that initiated in 2020. The composition yielded competitions from around the world, and the winners got {…}
There are few performers as magnetic as Ermonela Jaho. From the moment the Albanian soprano takes the stage, she is so entranced in the world she’s living in and the character she is bringing to life, that you can’t keep your eyes away. This was the case last season when she proved the standout amidst Zeffirelli’s gargantuan “Turandot” production and {…}
Just before the New Year celebration, the Lithuanian capital was seething with indignation and anger : one of the most famous Lithuanian singers in the world, Kristian Benedikt, had participated in the Christmas concert at the Bolshoi Theatre in Minsk. It was not the most understandable and logical decision on the part of the Lithuanian tenor, especially at a time {…}