Recently in Reviews
24 Jun 2009
The Gala release of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony from Hamburg performances on 29 and 30 November 1954 serves to document further the composer’s presence in the concerto hall prior to the well-known Mahler-renewal in 1960. »
24 Jun 2009
Amato Opera went to the netherworld of expired extravaganzas this spring, a
one-man operation whose one man was weary. As New York’s oldest
down-the-block and semi-pro company, it’s loss was regrettable —
though it’s many years since Amato gave up doing interesting repertory. »
24 Jun 2009
It is quite possible that Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is the leading summer opera destination in the United States. »
22 Jun 2009
A performance of sublime authority from Goerne and Eschenbach »
21 Jun 2009
Following the death of the American film director Anthony Minghella, ENO were left with a gap in the season vacated by the new production which he had been engaged to direct, and what better way to do so than by bringing back his immensely popular 2005 staging of Madam Butterfly? Minghella’s widow, Carolyn Choa (who has worked on the production from its original conception) was charged with resurrecting the production in tribute. »
21 Jun 2009
Last week (May 27), “without further a-don’t,” as she adorably puts it, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh, the world’s reigning traumatic soprano
— lately, she says, more of a soprano “spento” — bade a
last, lingering, loving farewell to her adoring public in a sold-out concert at
the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. »
21 Jun 2009
The Collegiate Chorale (ably supported by the orchestra of the New York City
Opera under George Manahan) chose Gluck’s Alceste, last heard in
New York at the City Opera in 1982, for its annual spring concert opera —
an excellent choice for a chorus eager to show its stuff. »
21 Jun 2009
Robert Carsen’s production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not new, as the La Scala playbill suggests. »
21 Jun 2009
La Cenerentola runs third in popularity among Rossini’s comic
operas — the Met didn’t get around to it at all until the present
staging was created for Cecilia Bartoli. »
21 Jun 2009
Very little is known about Giovanni Battista Draghi (or Drago, according to certain sources), known as Pergolesi. »
20 Jun 2009
To the sorrow of all lovers of baroque opera, J.S. Bach never composed for
the stage. »
19 Jun 2009
When Matthias Goerne was six, he heard Winterreise and was captivated. »
19 Jun 2009
Although there was considerable theatrical imagination on display, redemption was in critically short supply in Peter Konwitschny's production of The Flying Dutchman at Munich’s estimable Bavarian State Opera. »
18 Jun 2009
“Life is too important to be taken seriously” goes the motto. That could describe this cheerful production, just the right good humored tonic for these difficult times. »
18 Jun 2009
Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s early opera, Punch and Judy, premiered at Aldeburgh in 1968. Benjamin Britten reportedly walked out. Now Birtwistle is himself the pre-eminent British composer, whose work has long since become part of the Aldeburgh tradition. This year’s Festival opened with two Birtwistle premieres, The Corridor and Semper Dowland, simper dolens. »
17 Jun 2009
In a recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert featuring twentieth-century
instrumental and vocal compositions Ian Bostridge sang Benjamin Britten’s
Les Illuminations under the direction of principal conductor Bernard
Haitink. »
17 Jun 2009
Bostridge traded his fey haircut for slicked back Kray brothers look, complete with wrap round dark glasses in this Dreigroschenoper at the Barbican, London. »
17 Jun 2009
Strikes on the London Underground system may have made this a particularly exhausting and exasperating week for Londoners, but despite these wearing adversities Friday evening saw an eager crowd flock to the Wigmore Hall, in excited anticipation of an inspiring and invigorating blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar — and they were not disappointed. »
17 Jun 2009
Matthias Goerne and Christoph Eschenbach unite in a Schöne Müllerin of searing intensity. »
17 Jun 2009
“Mozart's first mature masterpiece,” Sophie Becker calls Idomeneo in the booklet essay of this DVD set of a June 2008 Bayerische Staatsoper staging. »
15 Jun 2009
The Austrian Ministry of Culture and the Committee for the Celebrations of
Haydn’s Bicentenary had a brilliant idea: on May 31st , the day of the
composer’s death, 20 symphony orchestras and/or opera houses performed
one of his greatest and best known oratorios Die Schöpfung (The
Creation) . »
15 Jun 2009
From the La Scala series of filmed productions come two excellent DVDs, one an incisive and contemporary staging by Patrice Chereau of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, and the other a rip-roaring, old-fashioned (in the best sense) performance of Donizetti's flawed but entertaining Maria Stuarda.
»
14 Jun 2009
Where else in the world does one have three opera houses, all playing almost nightly for 10 months of the year? It’s one of the things that makes Berlin paradise for opera buffs. »
12 Jun 2009
Like Carmen, Tosca is a constant presence in our operatic lives, frequently revisited like it or not. »
12 Jun 2009
Otto Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor belongs to that somewhat purgatorial group of operas best remembered only for their overtures. »
09 Jun 2009
ENO's latest new production of Così — their third this decade — made the arts headlines from the start of its rehearsal period when director Abbas Kiarostami found himself unable to secure a UK visa and was forced to withdraw his direct involvement, leaving colleague Elaine Tyler-Hall to deputise. »
07 Jun 2009
The buzz was right — this new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London is shockingly different. Christof Loy's production is what minimalism should be. »
07 Jun 2009
Julius Drake’s Temple song series is almost a cult secret -not known to the mass market but highly regarded among those who know, much like the Lieder genre itself. »
26 May 2009
Joseph Haydn's place in the history of the oratorio has been secured by his masterpieces The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). His first appearance, however, on the Mount Parnassus of oratorio was a good quarter of a century beforehand with Il ritorno di Tobia. »
26 May 2009
The new Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Ruggero Leoncavallo “Pagliacci” reached the Teatro dell’Opera di Rome on May 19 : I will be on stage in the Italian capital every night until May 27th . Then, it will continue a worldwide tour: its debut was in Florence in the 2008 Fall. It has already visited Moscow and Athens. It is rumored to reach the MET next seasons. »
26 May 2009
“Pique Dame” (“Pivokaja Dama” or “The Queen of Spades”) is one of Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky most difficult, and most expensive, operas to produce. »
22 May 2009
English Touring Opera continued its 30th anniversary celebrations with six concert performances of Norma, sung — unusually for ETO — in Italian, in a touring footprint which has some common ground with the ongoing staged tour of Katya Kabanova and The Magic Flute, but which is effectively an entirely separate tour. »
22 May 2009
Tim Albery’s production was first seen at Opera North in 1993 and has not been revived since 1998, when it was the first production of this opera I ever saw — an English-sung version of the four-act Italian version. »
21 May 2009
Lieder and opera are different worlds. But understanding the differences helps us appreciate what makes each form distinct. Hugo Wolf’s songs come close to bridging the genres. They’ve been described as “miniature operas” where dramas are distilled into compact form. »
21 May 2009
In its recent collection Mozart Lieder, Salzburg 1958-1984 in its series entitled “Festspiel Dokumente,” Orfeo pays homage to the tradition of Liederabend at the Salzburg Festival with selections from a quarter century of performances. »
17 May 2009
Bringing Andrei Şerban’s Turandot to the Washington National Opera as a season finale really means finishing the year with a bang. »
17 May 2009
You won’t get much argument nowadays — you won’t get any from me — if you call Handel’s dramatic oratorios operas in all but name. »
14 May 2009
On any list of great but seldom-performed operas, Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz must rank high. »
14 May 2009
L’elisir d’amore is perhaps Donizetti’s silliest opera — but also one of his most charming.
»
14 May 2009
Recorded live in concert on 19 August 2007, this performance of Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony by Claudio Abbado is part of the conductor's cycle involving the Lucerne Festival. »
13 May 2009
In David Alden’s extraordinary new staging of Britten’s
masterpiece, with sets by Paul Steinberg, the Borough is populated by stylised
grotesques, a clever twist on the opera’s existing ‘Little
England’ character stereotypes. »
13 May 2009
The Scottish Play’s ability to conduit bad luck is apparently not limited to the spoken stage, witness the new Paris Opéra production of Verdi’s Macbeth. »
12 May 2009
It’s the Ring — not just an ordinary evening (or four evenings) of opera — indeed, if you accept its creator’s words on the matter, it’s a music-drama, not an opera at all. »
12 May 2009
How often does one experience an opera in which everything works — in which there is not one flaw either in the staging or in its musical dimensions? »
12 May 2009
As far as world premieres go, Houston Grand Opera is in elite company in the United States, having performed thirty-eight new works prior to opening night of André Previn’s new opera Brief Encounter. »
