“Euridice” by Giulio Caccini was printed in 1600, as the first publication of an opera score. This signified the birth of opera and forever established the ground-breaking genre that we still admire today. Causing a stir at the start, Caccini is said to have been in direct competition for the publication of this score with another regarded composer of the {…}
Jake Heggie’s 2000 opera “Dead Man Walking” – based on the memoirs of Sister Helen Prejean and inspired by the film of the same name – hardly conforms to operatic standards. An intersection of “Porgy and Bess”-like motifs, rock opera recitatives, and the echoes of New Orleans jazz, it treats the opera template with a moderate respect: scant arias and {…}
Of Rossini’s opera’s “Semiramide,” his final Italian work, is often considered one of his finest. You probably would not draw that conclusion from the performance at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. The opera, which tells the tale of the “battle” for the throne of Babylon in the wake of its fallen monarch Nino, is a rather long {…}
Puccini’s “La Bohème” made a return to the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, February 16, 2018, with a cast that is slated for an HD performance a week from today. On the evidence of this opening night performance, that transmission the world over should be quite special. Zeffirelli’s production needs no introduction (though if you want some commentary, check out these {…}
In 2018-19, Jaap van Zweden, the current Music Director Designate of the New York Philharmonic, will drop the Designate part of that label. And if the concert on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018 is any indication, he is going to be providing audiences with some dazzling music for years to come. In a series of concerts that kicked off on Valentine’s {…}
Fans of bel canto opera were treated nearly a year ago to the first mounting of “Norma” at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 20 years with a dream cast that included Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. Those fans have waited since the 1991-92 season to see Bellini’s final work, the masterful “I Puritani,” which I saw Saturday night in {…}
Since 2009 Opera Rara has been bringing obscure operatic works to the resplendent royal city of Kraków in Poland. Even though this year’s Opera Rara Festival included works by Charpentier, Gluck, Purcell and John Blow (the latter performed by John Butt and the superb Dunedin Concert) it is not just baroque bijoux which are presented to the receptive and appreciative {…}
Opening with Ravel’s « Cinq mélodies populaires grecques, » William Huyler set the tone for what was an introspective and heartfelt themed Master recital at the Manhattan School of Music’s Greenfield Hall. Huyler emphasized how each of the art song composers chosen for his recital (Ravel, Mahler and Copland), were each forbidden to have their creations performed at some point in their {…}
The Chicago Opera Theater presented a stellar performance of “Elizabeth Cree” on Feb. 10, 2018, at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago’s Fine Arts Building. A co-production with Opera Philadelphia, this murder mystery opera based on Peter Ackroyd’s historical crime novel, “The Trial of Elizabeth Cree,” treads a knife-edge, successfully balancing horrific dramatic narrative, tongue-in-cheek vaudeville, and bittersweet pathos. Mark Campbell’s text {…}