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Fred Cohn

is a frequent contributor to OPERA NEWS and the magazine's research associate.

Articles

  • Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera
    North America, Online Exclusive

    Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera

    "If Simon McBurney hasn’t quite succeeded in making the Met's new staging of Die Zauberflöte cohesive, he and his design team have certainly delivered plenty of invention. The zauber of this opera, of course, lies in the music itself. But Nathalie Stutzmann’s ineffective leadership seldom inspired the clarity necessary for embodying Mozart’s luminous sound world."

  • BOWLES: A Picnic Cantata
    Opera & Oratorio June 2023

    BOWLES: A Picnic Cantata

    “It feels like a lark: the creators clearly enjoyed their collaboration and were not interested in making a major statement. Ephemerality is coded in its DNA.”

  • Overstory Overture at Alice Tully Hall
    Concerts & Recitals, North America June 2023

    Overstory Overture at Alice Tully Hall

    "Tod Machover's new piece—a thirty-five-minute monodrama for vocal soloist, string orchestra, marimba and electronics—presented a prevailing texture that was defined by its buzzing, clashing aural elements; but an elusive kind of order seemed to be struggling to break through. The first part of the program had included with Anton Webern’s early Langsamer Satz; whether through design or happenstance, parts of Overstory Overture echoed that work’s late-Romantic language, hinting at both a safe harbor and possible further dissolution."

  • Rediscovered Country
    Sasha Cooke and Matthew White, Genièvre and Lancelot in Le Roi Arthus at Bard, 2021
    Feature June 2023

    Rediscovered Country

    Leon Botstein explores unfamiliar repertory at the annual Bard Music Festival.

  • Mid-Century Modern
    Vanessa at Glyndebourne
    Feature June 2023

    Mid-Century Modern

    Will twentieth-century American operas endure in the repertory?

  • Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera
    North America, Online Exclusive

    Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera

    "The Met's new Don Giovanni, directed by Ivo van Hove, benefits from the work of a truly wonderful cast—though this is definitely a production for the #metoo era. We can no longer look at the protagonist’s behavior with ambivalence: his rapaciousness now seems unambiguously monstrous. The staging, a thoroughly grim affair, scants the work’s humor and its surges of amorous heat. There is nothing 'giocoso' in this presentation of Mozart and da Ponte’s 'dramma giocoso.'"

  • Thomas Quasthoff in Verbier
    Recital May 2023

    Thomas Quasthoff in Verbier

    “His bass-baritone is in top form, until it’s not.”

  • Fuoco Sacro
    Documentary May 2023

    Fuoco Sacro

    A new documentary explores the work of three exemplary sopranos.

  • CILEA: Adriana Lecouvreur
    Adriana Lecouvreur Cover
    Opera & Oratorio April 2023

    CILEA: Adriana Lecouvreur

    “Director Frederic Wake-Walker’s production may torpedo the work’s dramaturgy, but Maria José Siri’s singing restores it to its rightful place.”