Year: 2009

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music drama Die tote Stadt has had a rather erratic life in major opera houses.

On a stormy evening in Houston (both in and outside of the house), Houston Grand Opera’s opening night production of Verdi’s Rigoletto went off with a thunderous bang.

Schubert’s music ‘suggests a rippling movement and by the side of the rippling a flowering: it has the variety and unsurprising naturalness of moving water and springing herb’ (Capell) and this same naturalness and sense of flowing ease are the very qualities which make John Mark Ainsley such a special interpreter of this composer.

Rome’s opera house was built in 1880, in the explosion of building that followed the unification of Italy with Rome as its capital.

Rigoletto is the ideal first opera: a taut tale, comprehensible characters, terrific tunes, and not an ounce of fat anywhere.

Was Tony Kushner’s monumental play Angels in America in need of being musicalized?