This review is for the performance on Thursday, March 22, 2018. Before I begin my review, properly, of this absolutely incredible evening, which featured some amazing musical moments, I want to bring up a constant I have seen throughout the past few years at the Metropolitan Opera and many theaters in the world. This season, the Metropolitan Opera presented a {…}
This review is for a work currently in development, and as such does not reflect any future productions. Mary Prescott’s “ALICE” offers the audience a first-hand journey into the life of a woman utterly at the mercy of those around her. No relation to the works by Lewis Carroll, Prescott’s chamber opera employs a number of creative choices to bring {…}
In most cities, different musical organizations persist in such aggressive rivalry it makes the Montagues and Capulets look like kissing cousins. Not so in Barcelona where the three major performing venues, namely the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Palau de a Música Catalana and the L’Auditori have come together under a coordinating entity called Barcelona Obertura to make music in the {…}
There is something of Halley’s comet about Umberto Giordano’s most famous opera “Andrea Chénier.” It reappears every so often (happily not so infrequently as every 75 years) excites and dazzles, leaves verismo fanatics in paroxysms of delight, then vanishes back into the operatic firmament. With the recent notable exception at La Scala, productions of “Andrea Chénier” have invariably been connected to {…}
It’s amazing what a ripping good yarn enhanced by instantly recognizable themes can do for an audience. American composer Jake Heggie’s opera, “Moby Dick,” now being performed by the Pittsburgh Opera, is in many ways a return to that fundamental principle for operatic success: create characters audiences care about, and endow them with memorable motifs to better manipulate the viewers’ {…}
It was intermission at the premiere of Phelim McDermott’s new Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart and Da Ponte’s “Così Fan Tutte” and someone made this statement to me. “It’s fun and everything, but why set it on Coney Island?” It’s a great point, but one could extrapolate that entire statement to the opera itself – “It’s got great music and {…}
As Professor Higgins insisted, diction is everything. If one mentions the word “Rinaldo” in Madrid without clearly articulating the letter “i” as an Italianate “ee,” locals invariably start talking about the football superstar from the Stadio Bernabeu rather than an obscure baroque opera in the National Auditorium. Obviously Handel’s “Rinaldo” is a different pitch altogether, although ambiguity is still inherent. {…}
The origins of Philip Glass’ “La Belle et la Bête” are indeed interesting. For many years Glass has had an interest in French film, and in particular a fascination with the works of Jean Cocteau, and in 1994 he decided to write a film score/opera based on Cocteau’s 1946 film of the same name, which was to be the third {…}
Janáček’s final opera, “From the House of the Dead (Z mrtvého domu),” is among the operatic canon’s most insular works. Set in a Siberian prison camp, the piece is uncharacteristic as an opera from several perspectives: it features just a single female voice – although originally a mezzo sang the tenor role; its setting is confined to the lugubrious complexion {…}