In Review
Pinned posts
-
Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’s forty-eighth festival season included works by Joplin, Floyd, Puccini and Mozart.
In review posts
-
100th Anniversary Concert at San Francisco Opera
100th Anniversary Concert at San Francisco Opera
"San Francisco Opera marked its centennial with the kind of concert opera-lovers dream about—an evening-length program that looked back on the company’s storied history while celebrating its vibrant present. Hosted by SFO general director Matthew Shilvock and featuring three conductors—company SFO music director Eun Sun Kim, former SFO music director Donald Runnicles, and former principal guest conductor Patrick Summers—the concert in the War Memorial Opera House featured sixteen singers, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and John Keene’s Chorus in a wide-ranging program staged by Shawna Lucey."
-
Ein Deutsches Requiem at Carnegie Hall
Ein Deutsches Requiem at Carnegie Hall
"This was the kind of ideal performance one imagines when contemplating this monumental work, with the highs at their most terrific, the lows at their most serene and the dynamics in between carefully calibrated. It’s rare to hear choral and orchestral forces so well-matched—then again, these ensembles work together year-round."
-
Don Giovanni at Teatro Grattacielo
Don Giovanni at Teatro Grattacielo
"Tasos Protopsaltou’s production design was inspired by Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with the singers drifting around in an unspecified space wearing unflattering ’90s outfits and lounging onstage on futons decorated in Rubik’s Cube chic. Unfortunately, an aesthetic isn’t the same as a coherent concept, and in this misguided production the young singers, some performing complete roles for the first time, floundered. Asking any soprano, let alone an inexperienced one, to sing the most famous duet in the opera while preparing a smoothie is just unfair. It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but nothing in Stefanos Koroneos’s direction did."
-
Ariadne auf Naxos at Garsington Opera
Ariadne auf Naxos at Garsington Opera
"Director Bruno Ravella is a craftsman and the intricate conversational byplay between the characters in both halves of the piece was finely observed."
-
Hugh Cutting & Orchestra of St. Luke's at Zankel Hall
Hugh Cutting & Orchestra of St. Luke's at Zankel Hall
"With his unruly mop of blond hair, cherubic face and sweet, milky countertenor, countertenor High Cutting presented a boyish demeanor, but his musicianship during this evening of Bach and Handel was elegant and evolved."
-
The Queen of Spades at the Grange Festival
The Queen of Spades at the Grange Festival
"The outstanding achievement of the Grange Festival's 2023 season was the company premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, given in a production by Paul Curran and conducted by Paul Daniel. Curran brought a commendably coherent overview to the piece while regularly focusing on smaller details that registered powerfully: the slow, steady disintegration of Eduard Martynyuk’s Herman was particularly well presented in the tenor’s stance and physical gestures."
-
"Secret Byrd" presented by Death of Classical
"Secret Byrd" presented by Death of Classical
"The singers and instrumentalists all gave excellent performances. It is a real treat to hear five-part polyphony sung one to a part (and well sung) at such close proximity. The ensembles played very well in tune with each other in music that is not always so easy. This was an effective and compelling dramatic presentation, as well as a reminder of our hope for a world in which people’s differences of belief are tolerated and respected."
-
The Harlem Chamber Players at Miller Theatre at Columbia University
The Harlem Chamber Players at Miller Theatre at Columbia University
"The Harlem Chamber Players celebrated their fifteenth anniversary at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. Damien Sneed conducted the diverse, enthusiastic and talented orchestra, accompanying five singers of color who performed a mix of arias from the standard repertoire and works by Black composers."
-
Ghost Opera at the Ojai Music Festival
Ghost Opera at the Ojai Music Festival
"Few contemporary composers make us listen as closely and as exactingly as Tan Dun. We savor the tone, quality, and texture of each moment, we scrutinize the sounds that arise from unusual combinations of instruments, melodies, and voices, and we listen, above all perhaps, to the silence to which the music gives definition and meaning. Ghost Opera is not strictly an opera—in Tan Dun’s composition list it is labeled as “performance art”—but one of the most distinguishing functions of operatic music is its capacity to fill a space, so that space and music become one. Tan Dun is one of the masters of this particular art and this work clearly showed us how he is."