Month: April 2015
Tansy Davies: Between Worlds (world premiere)
An opera dealing with — or at least claiming to deal with — the events of 11 September 2001? I suppose it had to come, but that does not necessarily make it any more necessary.
Arizona Opera Ends Season in Fine Style with Fille du RÈgiment
On April 10, 2015, Arizona Opera ended its season with La Fille du RÈgiment at Phoenix Symphony Hall. A passionate Marie, Susannah Biller was a veritable energizer bunny onstage. Her voice is bright and flexible with a good bloom on top and a tiny bit of steel in it. Having created an exciting character, she sang with agility as well as passion.
Il turco in Italia, Royal Opera
This second revival of Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s 2005 production of Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia seems to have every going for it: excellent principals comprising experienced old-hands and exciting new voices, infinite gags and japes, and the visual Èclat of Agostino Cavalca’s colour-bursting costumes and Christian Fenouillat’s sunny sets which evoke the style, glamour and ease of La Dolce Vita.
The Siege of Calais
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The Wild Man of the West Indies
English Touring Opera’s 2015 Spring Tour is audacious and thought-provoking. Alongside La BohËme the company have programmed a revival of their acclaimed 2013 production of Donizetti’s The Siege of Calais (L’assedio di Calais) and the composer’s equally rare
The Wild Man of the West Indies (Il furioso all’isola di San
Domingo).
The Met’s Lucia di Lammermoor
Mary Zimmerman’s still-fresh production is made fresher still by Shagimuratova’s glimmering voice, but the acting disappoints
Voices, voices in space, and spaces: Thoughts on 50 years of Meredith Monk
When WNYC’s John Schaefer introduced Meredith Monk’s beloved Panda
Chant II, which concluded the four-and-a-half hour Meredith Monk &
Friends celebration at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, he described it as “an expression of joy and musicality” before lamenting the fact that playing it on his radio show could never quite compete with a live performance.
St. John Passion by Soli Deo Gloria, Chicago
This year’s concert of the Chicago Bach Project, under the aegis of the Soli Deo Gloria Music Foundation, was a presentation of the St. John Passion (BWV 245) at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park.