It may be wondered why Strauss decided to write an opera about the relative merits of the words and music in opera: “prima la musica o prima le parole?” Although it is a debate as old as opera itself, it is hardly a subject that is likely to excite potential audiences, and it is no doubt one of the reasons {…}
It’s hard not to applaud the New York City Opera for its return to form. A few years ago the company went into bankruptcy and had to close. It was devastating for opera lovers who wanted an alternative to the Metropolitan Opera and the rather barren New York opera landscape in general. But times have changed and thankfully the company {…}
Gluck’s “Orphée et Eurydice” in many ways can be summed up by the movement of the four seasons – the bloom and beauty of love dashed away by the winter of death, only for spring to bloom yet again in a rebirth of the protagonists. At the Teatro Mayor Julio Santo Domingo, the Ópera de Colombia and Teatro Mayor Julio {…}
San Francisco Opera’s “Don Giovanni” brings us bass-baritones with gusto, sopranos with flair, a tenor who pleads his case with feeling, and an opera that never ceases to amaze. Opening SFO’s 2017 summer season, Jacopo Spirei, in his SFO debut, offers us the ever satisfying chestnut in as provocative and seductive a production as the Don himself. Who can {…}
Cleveland is tough on her Mimì’s. Just over a year ago, Cleveland Opera Theater brought the Puccini warhorse “La Bohème” to the Masonic Auditorium of Cleveland, with founder and Executive Director Andrea Anelli as the tragic heroine; a month later, she arrived at an impasse with her Board of Directors and was out. One wonders whether Dorota Sobieska, who for {…}
For the past week the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, under the direction fo Vladimir Spivakov, has been touring the country performing works from Shostakovich, Bellini, Grieg, Mozart and many more. It has been a tour accompanied by Hibla Gerzmava and Danielle Atka. After successful concerts in Chicago, it was time for New York audiences to see what the hype was {…}
Alan Gilbert is saying goodbye to the New York Philharmonic as music director. It ends a tenure that brought significant new works and experimented with the standard repertoire alongside one of the finest orchestras in the world. But Gilbert has made sure to make opera a mainstay for the New York Philharmonic so it is no surprise that he ends his {…}
How do you put on a gala? That is a question that most houses sometimes ask. Some think it is about uniting the most stars and having them walk on stage and just sing arias one after the other. Other houses put on different scenes from operas. Most recently we witnessed singers in costumes, standing and singing for over four {…}
Once again, San Francisco offers us an original, Opera Parallèle’s “Les Enfants Terribles” by celebrated American composer Philip Glass. In 1996, Glass adapted the story from the novel (1929) and film (1950) of the same name by the famous French artist and toast of the town Jean Cocteau, who himself took the myth of eternal youth as his starting point. Glass’s opera-ballet {…}