All three acts of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly take place in a tiny Japanese cottage on an isolated hill overlooking Nagasaki. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an American naval officer, has purchased…
Author: Andrew Moravcsik
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Princeton University. Also appointments at Technical University of Munich (Germany) and European University Institute (Italy).
Rigoletto at the Chicago Lyric
Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto tells the story of a small community in which one man’s absolute and arbitrary power eventually corrupts everyone around him. The tragedy is universal: if you find…
An Unusual Bel Canto Revival in New York: Carolina Uccelli, Anna di Resburgo (1835)
With New York’s Metropolitan Opera struggling to hype star singers, commission enduring new works, fill a mammoth space, and balance its budget, the vitality of the city’s opera scene has…
Getting Beneath the Surface: Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte in Princeton
On its face, no opera seems trashier than Così fan tutte. Two best bros bet on the fidelity of their young fiancées, disguise themselves as exotic strangers, and try to…
Asmik Grigorian in Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera
Madama Butterfly is firmly ensconced among the top-ten “most performed” operas worldwide and the Met’s current production is nearly two decades old. Yet, over the past few weeks, the Met…
Celebrating the Schoenberg Sesquicentennial at Carnegie Hall
Over the past generation, the polymathic conductor Leon Botstein has done much to promote large and obscure late-Romantic works. A recent sold-out performance of Arnold Schonberg’s Gurre-Lieder at Carnegie Hall…
Jonas Kaufmann in Aida at the Bayerische Staatsoper
Aida, an opera that requires at least five fine Verdi voices, has fallen on hard times. Still, the cast announced for last Saturday’s performance at the Bayerische Staatsoper, headed by…
Verdi, La traviata in Venice
The opening reception of the Biennale had ended early, Teatro La Fenice was dark, and I found myself with an unexpectedly free evening in Venice. Musica a Palazzo is one…
A Shot of Coffee in New York
Johann Sebastian Bach composed some of the most sublime religious music in the Western canon, yet in everyday life he was an earthy fellow. With his long-time collaborator Christian Henrici,…
Chornobyldorf: An Archaeological Opera in Seven Novels
For two weeks in January each year, the Prototype Festival brings small-scale and experimental musical theater to New York. The focus is on new works that draw not so much…