To note its tenth anniversary season, the enterprising Pacific Opera Project has quite winningly kicked off the celebration by revisiting the first opera it ever produced, Leonard Bernstein’s one act…
Author: James Sohre
Elmer Gantry the Opera
The novels of Sinclair Lewis once shot across the American literary skies like comets, alarming and fascinating readers of that era, but their tails didn’t extend far behind them.
Historical Performances from Covent Garden: Barbiere, La traviata and Tosca
Once the province of only the most dedicated opera fanatics, mid-20th century recordings of privately taped live performances have become more widely available.
Lucia and the glass harmonica
Flute players in opera orchestra around the world must look forward to the frequent appearances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, knowing that while the stage spotlight in the mad scene…
Levine conducts at the Metropolitan Opera: 1978 to 2006
Since his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1971, conductor James Levine has come to represent the house’s commitment to artistic excellence — reliable, professional, and immaculately presented.
Netrebko and Garan?a in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena
The cinema world has given us “star vehicle,” a term used to describe a movie that may not have the best script or direction but which suits a popular actor’s…
Previn conducts the LSO in the 1970s
AndrÈ Previn’s leadership of the London Symphony Orchestra in the early 1970s resulted in some highly regarded recordings, including one of the classic accounts of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony.
Fleming in Strauss’s Capriccio
Is there somewhere in Italian opera repertory where, as a comic interlude, the portentous clichÈs of German opera come in for a skewering amid the luscious sunshine of Italianate lyricism?
Pountney directs Verdi’s Forza for Vienna
One of the guiding principles of the revisionist (if not intervisionist) school of opera directing commonly called “regie-theater” is that certain outdated dramatic conventions in the librettos of many great…