April 2023

L’Elisir d’Amore at The Metropolitan Opera

"The revival of Bartlett Sher’s earthy production of Donizetti’s opera featured Javier Camarena, whose silken tenor soared gracefully from his opening “Quanto è bella,” and the winsome Adina of Golda Schultz, whose soprano provided a glowing, fluid sound and effortless runs."

Dialogues des Carmélites at The Metropolitan Opera

"John Dexter’s much-admired 1977 staging of Dialogues des Carmélites, seen in revival on the afternoon of January 15, remains starkly powerful, although sentimentality has taken the edge off some memorable staging moments. Still, the final scene of the opera was ineffably moving, thanks to the committed singing and acting of the distinguished cast, and to Dexter’s staging, still singularly compelling more than four decades after it was created."

Mary Motorhead/TRADE at the Prototype Festival

"The Prototype Festival's presentation of the world premiere of a double bill by Irish composer Emma O’Halloran showed the composer to be tremendously imaginative in combining electronic and acoustic musical elements into a cohesive dramatic whole. O’Halloran's music is full of surprises, both harmonic and instrumental, with lyrical vocal writing that redeems her characters."

note to a friend at the Prototype Festival

"David Lang's chamber opera, which received its world premiere as part of this season’s Prototype Festival, announces its subject matter in the first startling line: 'People who kill themselves/don’t usually tell you what they think about killing themselves.'"

Marchita at the Prototype Festival

"A very personal thirty-five-minute work that just barely fits into any standard definition of the term 'opera,' Marchita resists easy categorization, as does its composer Latin Grammy-winning composer, Silvana Estrada, who communicates viscerally and sends her audience into uncharted realms."

Die Fledermaus at the Teatro Carlo Felice

"In Italy, Die Fledermaus has long enjoyed a certain popularity in translation, but Italian performances of the Johann Strauss operetta in the original German are still relatively rare. And it is still rarer for a musician of the caliber of Fabio Luisi to be engaged to conduct it. The new production at the Teatro Carlo Felice demonstrated what a difference that makes."

Least Like the Other at Linbury Theatre

"Irish National Opera returned to the Linbury Theatre to present composer Brian Irvine and director-librettist Netia Jones's opera about Rosemary Kennedy, performed here by soprano Amy Ní Fhearraigh, whose complex, moving performance was at the center of the show."

Daphne at Carnegie Hall

"The American Symphony Orchestra and its music director Leon Botstein brought Richard Strauss’s Daphne to the mainstage at Carnegie Hall in a monumental concert featuring this rarely performed score—the opportunity to hear it live is extraordinary enough—but this performance in particular was elevated by the exquisite Daphne of soprano Jana McIntyre."

Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Easter Festival Baden-Baden

"Under Kirill Petrenko's baton the Berlin Philharmonic gave a ravishing performance of Frau ohne Schatten in Baden-Baden. Petrenko reveled in the score’s lush orchestration and its filigree details, generating a performance of poise, elegance and white-hot energy."

La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein at Staastheater am Gärtnerplatz

"This Grande-Duchesse, unfortunately, fell dramatically flat, due to several conceptual miscalculations, heavy-handed humor and banal text additions as well as questionable plot variations."

Dido and Aeneas/Erwartung at the Bavarian State Opera

Le Nozze di Figaro at Opera Omaha

"Opera Omaha finished its mainstage season with a marvelous production of Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro. Director Dean Anthony, who in his program note said, 'I believe I have to trust [Mozart’s musical trajectory] and not get in the way' did exactly that, and did so brilliantly. This production was easily Opera Omaha’s best staging of the year."

Stéphane Degout and Cédric Tiberghien at the Park Avenue Armory Board of Officers Room

"During his April 3 recital at the Park Avenue Armory, baritone Stéphane Degout's delivered his entire program of German lieder and French art songs—his acknowledged specialty—looking down at his music stand, never once giving his eyes to the audience while singing. Without that essential exchange with the audience, the burden of communication fell completely to Degout’s musical delivery. It's fortunate that he is a consummately expressive singer, with a pliant, lustrous baritone and nuanced, meditative attention to text."

Madama Butterfly at New Orleans Opera

"New Orleans Opera concluded its season with a Madama Butterfly that amounted to one of the finest realizations of this work in many seasons, in large part due to the compelling staging and evocative scenic designs. Director Aria Umezawa's thought-provoking reinterpretation of the work was refreshingly different but not at all untrue to the spirit of the original."

Tao of Glass at NYU Skirball Center

"While it can be hard to locate the thrust of the work, Tao of Glass is ultimately touching. A love letter to theater, to process and obsessions (namely performer and director Phelim McDermott's) and an account of how the music (of one man in particular) can locate you and guide you through your life."

Tacoma Method at Tacoma Opera

"Presenting a shameful chapter of Tacoma and American history—the expulsion of Chinese immigrants from the city—Tacoma Method, a new opera by composer Gregory Youtz and Beijing-born poet Zhang Er, lies midway between grand and chamber opera."

Tosca at Heartbeat Opera

"Heartbeat Opera's Tosca was so visceral and harrowing it felt like a different opera entirely—in the best way. The seamlessly tailored 100-minute adaptation by music director Jacob Ashworth and Iranian director Shadi G. stripped the work to its essence, exposing a story that, shorn of its Italianate excesses, is relatable and shockingly violent."

Fatma Said and Rafael Aguirre at Weill Recital Hall

"Making her Weill Recital Hall debut, the extraordinarily communicative soprano Fatma Said, accompanied by the virtuoso guitarist Rafael Aguirre, presented a captivating program of Spanish and Middle Eastern songs that conveyed the long, intertwined political history between Spain and Egypt."

Jeanine De Bique and Concerto Köln at Zankel Hall

"Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique possesses a quick, violin-like soprano of remarkable agility, and her singing in her Zankel Hall presentation with Concerto Köln was most satisfying when she was executing bursts of coloratura rage. One could hear every note of her runs, which frequently culminated in dazzling high notes. Unfortunately, her vocal delivery was inconsistent. Perhaps because she has recorded this repertoire, De Bique frequently fell into the sort of quiet croon one adopts when singing into a sensitive microphone. However, when she was good, she was very, very good."

GETTY: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Highlights)

“An enticing if brief portrait of a compelling, heartfelt opera.”

MARTINŮ: Larmes de Couteau, Comedy on the Bridge

“Possibly the first Surrealist opera.”

MONTEVERDI: L’Orfeo

“L’Orfeo’s intellectual agenda benefits from a degree of sympathetic stylization, which it gets in this spare yet visually striking production."

BRANDT: Kassandra

“Transplants the surprisingly relevant tale of the mythological Cassandra into the present day. Inspired.”

SCHUBERT: Schwanengesang

“Bostridge, with pianist Lars Vogt, does something sensational.”

Odeya Nini: ODE

“Featuring exciting, visceral, wholly new discoveries of sound and vocalism.”

SCHUBERT: Schwanengesang

“Schuen offers a healthy, well-schooled and long-breathed instrument.”

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.”

VERDI: Gustavo III (Un Ballo in Maschera)

“Nothing in Jacopo Spirei’s staging illuminates the work, but things are better on the podium, where Roberto Abbado gives an admirably detailed reading of the score.”

SILVESTROV: Maidan

“A humbling reminder that the present turmoil in Ukraine actually began a decade ago.”

PASQUINI: L’Idalma

“It contains a great deal of charming, melodically inventive music, here given a lively workout.”

RAMEAU: Zoroastre

“Rameau’s orchestral writing is inventive, expressive and astonishingly imaginative.”

PURCELL: Dido and Aeneas

“The musical and vocal rewards are considerable.”

TIN: The Lost Birds

“This song cycle, subtitled An Extinction Elegy, laments the steady disappearance of birds from the skies with music that goes straight to the tear ducts.”

Eric Ferring: No Choice but Love: Songs of the LGBTQ+ Community

“Eric Ferring is a prodigiously gifted lyric tenor, but he is not yet an accomplished singer of songs.”

MAYR: L’Accademia di Musica

“It’s a shame Rossini in Wildbad didn’t trust this composer enough to present his actual work.”

ABEL: Spectrum

“Abel has developed a very personal style, based equally on rock and classical music.”