Category: Performances

First seen in 1995, and here receiving its seventh revival, Jonathan Miller’s CosÏ fan tutte has lost none of its power to unsettle and discomfort.

Gil Shohat, now 35 and Israeli’s top classical composer, was 15 when
in the ‘80s he saw Hanoch Levin’s The Child Dream on stage in his native Tel Aviv. Shohat, of course, knew Levin’s work well, for throughout early decades in the history of Israel he — its outstanding dramatist — had served somewhat as the conscience of a nation tormented defining itself within its pain-wrought beginnings.

The Wigmore Hall was bursting its seams in excited anticipation of this recital by the American mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato.

Melodic and scenic gaiety predominates in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new
production of Franz Leh·r’s The Merry Widow.

Covent Garden has revived director Robert Lepage’s popular and well-traveled version of The Rake’s Progress with often thrilling results.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, around 1777, the Empress Maria
Theresa used to visit Prince Esterhazy’s summer palace at Esterh‡za,
where there was an opera house fully equipped with stage machinery, leading
singers, an orchestra, and a guy named Joseph Haydn to compose on cue.

Stiffelio was composed just after Luisa Miller — an opera that has had little trouble holding its own in the repertory — and just before the magic trio of Rigoletto, Trovatore and Traviata, the first Verdi operas to take their immediate place on the stages of the world and hold them without a break from that day to this.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb
And happier they their happiness who knew
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time

Concert performances of operas are often problematic in that the work tends to be cut or otherwise played around with, or the venue is inappropriate – after all, these were meant to be staged pieces.

Elina Garanča conceals her gleaming gold tresses beneath a curly black wig to sing Carmen.