Semele, Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a09ad284-d33e-11dc-b861-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Awesome Angelika Again

While I eagerly seized upon an opportunity to hear Angelika Kirschlager live for the first time, having written in very recent weeks about not one but two of the star mezzo’s current CD releases, I ventured to Frankfurt’s Alte Oper feeling a little bit like her stalker.

Madam Butterfly, Coliseum, London

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b97a43ea-d0ee-11dc-953a-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

“Dame de pique” gagnante

http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2008/02/02/dame-de-pique-gagnante_1006700_3246.html#ens_id=1006769

Dallas Opera presents lurid Bible story ‘Salome’

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-salome_0131gl.ART0.State.Edition2.45b1cc1.html

Karita Mattila Performs Manon Lescaut

When I worked in the Archives of the Met, I was custodian of several hundred costumes, many from the days when divas traveled with steamer trunks full of things run up just for them, by the finest designers, with the most glamorous materials, in the colors and styles that suited the ladies themselves.

J. S. Bach, arr. Robert Schumann. Johannes Passion.

In 1851 during his first season as music director in D¸sseldorf, Robert Schumann presented a performance of Bachís St. John Passion, and unsurprisingly adapted the score both to nineteenth-century taste and nineteenth-century practicalities.

The Mikado

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article3283787.ece

DE LALANDE: Les Folies de Cardenio.

The centrality of dance at the French court helped bring grace, order, and political allegory into the characteristic prominence they enjoyed during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV; theatre presentations of all stripes were infused with choreographic diversions.

SIBELIUS: Symphonies 1-7

In tandem with the recently released set of Sir Simon Rattle’s recordings of Mahler’s symphonies on EMI Classics, the set of the complete symphonies by Jean Sibelius merits attention.