As part of their ongoing mission to share and celebrate the artistic treasures of Eurasian cultures, the Eurasia Festival has announced their 2019 Summer Season, featuring a lineup of performances which will be sure to inspire and delight audiences of all backgrounds. June 24 will see the festival’s Opening Night Gala, held at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York {…}
A few facts you need to know before reading this review: Russian opera is something extremely different. Such operas are just perfect for diversifying a repertoire of any European or American opera house. The main reason you might not like Russian opera is an incorrect performance. You need to be a Russian native to understand if it sounds correct. You {…}
The New York Festival of Song will present “Manning the Canon: Songs of Gay Life” on June 25, 2019 at the LGBT Community Center. The performance will feature music by such composers as Berg, Bernstein, Blitzstein, Bolcom, Britten, Coleman, de Blasio, De Falla, Griffes, Porter, Poulenc, Saint-Saëns, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Wallowitch as performed by tenor Daniel McGrew, Scott Murphree, Efraín {…}
On March 31, 2019, the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions were brought to a thrilling conclusion with their grand finals concert. Hosted by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, nine young finalists took to the Metropolitan’s stage for the first time to share their artistic gifts with the audience. Opening the afternoon’s concert was soprano Meghan Kasanders, singing “Dich, teure Halle’ from {…}
On March 7, 2019, lovers of classical music gathered at the Church of the Intercession for the latest installment of Unison Media’s celebrated series, The Crypt Sessions. These concerts, curated by company president Andrew Ousley, often sell-out in minutes due to not only the limited size of the crypt, but the world-class performers that fill its depth with music. This {…}
What would you choose: love or game? This is the central question facing Herman, the protagonist of “The Queen of Spades.” It’s also one that the authors had to confront. Pushkin wrote his story from a social perspective and analyzed how addiction can ruin lives. So in his analysis, Herman was an addicted player and Liza was just a victim. {…}
On Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, the Metropolitan Opera will revive its double bill of “Iolanta” and “Bluebeard’s Castle.” The former work will receive its eighth performance at the Met on Thursday in just its first revival with the company. However, the history of “Bluebeard’s Castle” and its 31 performances with the company is intriguing. The work itself is rather brief {…}
On Jan. 22, 2019, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden will present Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades” in cinemas around the world. The production will be directed by directed by Stefan Herheim whose previous work with the company includes “Les Vêpres Siciliennes” and will feature Aleksandrs Antonenko as Gherman; the Latvian tenor has previously performed in such operas as “Otello,” {…}
Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” and Bartók’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” will return to the Metropolitan Opera as a double after a successful run a few seasons ago. On first look, it seems like a strange combination with the composers’ styles rather different overall. It takes a truly strong maestro to move from Tchaikovsky’s lush lyrical qualities to Bartók’s challenging harmonic structures. Hungarian maestro Henrik {…}
Tchaikovsky’s final opera, “Iolanta,” sung in Russian with English supertitles, received a heartfelt and naturalistic production by the Chicago Opera Theater on November 11, 2018, at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building, Chicago. With a libretto by the composer’s brother, Modest, “Iolanta” is a 85-minute opera with four scenes presented seamlessly in one act. It explores themes of {…}
Since Andris Nelsons became the 21st Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in February 2018, he has started to plan a European tour to represent this great collaboration with the orchestra. This tour features appearances in London, in Frankfurt, Mannheim, and Dortmund in Germany, in Malmo and Stockholm in Sweden, as well as in Nelsons’ homeland, Latvia — in Riga and in {…}