July 2023
Michael Spyres: Bel Canto Baritenor
Star Like No Other: Grace Bumbry • Taking Chances: U.S. Opera Companies Post-Pandemic • Scenes from the 2023 OPERA NEWS Awards • Go West, Light Opera: Los Angeles Civic Light Opera • Collaborative Spirits: George Benjamin and Martin Crimp • Gusto & Imagination: Minnesota Opera Celebrates its 60th • Conductor Teddy Abrams • Sound Bites: Vladyslav Buialskyi
Features
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Go West, Light Opera
Go West, Light Opera
Edwin Lester’s L.A. Civic Light Opera spearheaded a culture of theater-making.
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Collaborative Spirits
Collaborative Spirits
Composer George Benjamin and playwright Martin Crimp have a new opera for Aix-en-Provence.
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Episodes of Discovery
Episodes of Discovery
Opera Maine brings first-rate productions and performers to the Pine Tree State.
Departments
In Review
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Champion at The Metropolitan Opera
Champion at The Metropolitan Opera
"Terence Blanchard has single-handedly expanded the reach of twenty-first century opera with captivating, back-to-back Met premieres. With Champion, the composer's 'opera in jazz,' he proves remarkably successful in using voices trained for opera accompanied by swing rhythms to tell stories in the American vernacular."
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Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera
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.'"
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Fountain of Tears (Ainadamar) at Detroit Opera
Fountain of Tears (Ainadamar) at Detroit Opera
"Detroit Opera presentation of Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang’s Fountain of Tears (Ainadamar) proved that this 2005 work is much more than an opera: it is a bullfight ballet, multimedia meditation, new music Flamenco fusion, even a freedom requiem, whose characters move through a series of moments in a swirl of magical realism reminiscent of Gabriel García Marquez."
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Tosca at Houston Grand Opera
Tosca at Houston Grand Opera
"Against the chaotic Rome of the opera's setting and a production that underscored the work's violence, the outstanding singing in this performance threw the intense and affecting emotions of Tosca’s characters into relief.
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Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Easter Festival Baden-Baden
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."
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Tannhäuser at the Salzburg Easter Festival
Tannhäuser at the Salzburg Easter Festival
"Making his highly anticipated role debut in Salzburg Easter Festival performances of Tannhäuser, Jonas Kaufmann challenged notions of what the fiendishly difficult title role out to sound like. His dark, burnished tenor had an intense, sustained glow that held him in good stead, and his shining moment arrived with the Rome Narrative at the evening’s end."
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Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala
Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala
"Lisette Oropesa took on the title role in La Scala's new production of Lucia di Lammermoor with considerable technical aplomb, and a persuasive blending of soft-edged tone and clear, expressive diction. Her soprano never becoming hard or piercing, and hers was a moving assumption from the opening scene."
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I Due Foscari at the Teatro Carlo Felice
I Due Foscari at the Teatro Carlo Felice
"One rarely hears a performance of Verdi’s Due Foscari in which all three principal roles—for baritone, tenor and soprano—are assigned to singers impressively equipped to perform them. Teatro Carlo Felice rose to that challenge (although the supporting roles were less strongly cast) and also engaged a conductor, Renato Palumbo, capable of inspiring those singers to give of their best."
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Der Zar Lässt Sich Fotografieren and Die Kluge at Oper Frankfurt
Der Zar Lässt Sich Fotografieren and Die Kluge at Oper Frankfurt
"Keith Warner’s dynamic, colorful production for these two rarely performed twentieth-century operas was a perfect visual complement to these two propulsively witty scores. What these two works, created under wildly different circumstances by vastly different composers, have in common is a shared interest in subverting operatic form."
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Hamlet at the Komische Oper Berlin
Hamlet at the Komische Oper Berlin
"Nadja Loschky’s grim production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, which arrived in early spring, offered further proof that the Komische remains the most interesting place for opera in Berlin, if not all of Germany."
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Roméo et Juliette at Zurich Opera
Roméo et Juliette at Zurich Opera
"Zurich Opera's new production of Roméo et Juliette was raised from the level of very good to absolutely memorable by the work of tenor Benjamin Bernheim and conductor Roberto Forés Veses, with the latter drawing magnificent playing from Philharmonia Zurich."
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Carmen at the Opéra Comique
Carmen at the Opéra Comique
"The company's new production was headed by the experienced Carmen of Gaëlle Arquez, who was in sumptuous form, with pulpy mezzo tone and exemplary phrasing. It was the fault of the production that this proudly independent Carmen lacked the animal magnetism that is at the heart of José’s obsession, but it was a pleasure to hear the role so well sung."
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La Bohème at Washington National Opera
La Bohème at Washington National Opera
"Joe Davies's staging of Puccini's opera updates the setting to just after World War I, giving an extra-bittersweet tinge to the work’s sempiternal truths about fleeting youth and impulsive love, while an appealing cast brought the characters into sharp focus and largely met the demands of the indelible score."
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Falstaff at Opéra de Lille
Falstaff at Opéra de Lille
"Denis Podalydès of the Comédie-Française, presented a new production of Verdi's opera that skillfully teetered on the line between comedy and tragedy. The producer obviously saw in the eighty-year-old composer’s last opera a contemplation on life and even death, and his staging proved to be a highlight of the Lille opera season."
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Salome at Houston Grand Opera
Salome at Houston Grand Opera
"The company's performance of Strauss's opera achieved a fundamental recasting of the iconic Salome herself, transforming the princess from caricature to flesh-and-blood character—and in so doing, gave a classic opera depth, meaning, and vital significance for our times."
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Don Giovanni at Minnesota Opera
Don Giovanni at Minnesota Opera
"In the company’s latest iteration of Mozart’s masterpiece, the Don, compellingly portrayed by Seth Carico, turns out to be the usual coat of many colors—a trickster, a con man, a playboy, a sex addict and a charmer given to sudden eruptions of violence that he seemingly has no control over. He preys on women, and they find him irresistible, even though they’re afraid of him. The difference this time around, in a staging by Keturah Stickann that might be called the #MeToo approach, is that the women, the Don’s victims, get their revenge."
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Iolanthe presented by MasterVoices
Iolanthe presented by MasterVoices
"What may have impeded this work's embrace by American audiences is its very specific topical humor, which takes so many jabs at British politics and celebrities of its time. That problem was neatly solved by MasterVoices and its artistic director Ted Sperling in their semi-staged concert performance. The excellent supertitles by MB Productions included brief explanations guaranteed laughs where there might have been few. Under Sperling’s conducting and directing, a cast of Broadway veterans and emerging younger talents made this one of those memorable only-in-New York evenings."
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“Night & Day, USA” presented by New York Festival of Song & the Juilliard School
“Night & Day, USA” presented by New York Festival of Song & the Juilliard School
"The program consisted of eighteen unrelated songs presented with a through-line: the five singers, directed by Katherine Carter, offered songs centering around morning, afternoon and evening in the day of the life of various people. Any contrived plot for concert repertoire feels amateurish; this program’s conceit, unfortunately, was no exception."
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Golda Schultz, Andris Nelsons & Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
Golda Schultz, Andris Nelsons & Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
"When Golda Schultz made her vocal entrance in the Boston Symphony Orchestra's performance of Sibelius’s Luonnotar at Carnegie Hall, the very color of her voice seemed informed by the luminous texture of the orchestra behind her."
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Le Nozze di Figaro at Madison Opera
Le Nozze di Figaro at Madison Opera
"Soprano Elizabeth Caballero won the performance's vocal laurels with her beguiling Countess Almaviva. Mozart’s Countess trades in pure legato, and Caballero delivered gloriously, with a melting “Dove sono” that emerged as the single most beautiful solo interlude of the evening."
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The Makropulos Case at Malmö Opera
The Makropulos Case at Malmö Opera
"Any production of Janáček’s knotty opera needs a leading soprano magnetic enough to distract from the legalese that can suck life from the stage. Agneta Eichenholz scored impressively in some departments, not so much in others. We saw remnants of the emotional detachment that gave her Lulu such a desperately tragic air. Otherwise, her Emilia Marty gave too much away too quickly, with an emotional vulnerability that softened the impact of her ultimate transformation."
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Das Rheingold at Atlanta Opera
Das Rheingold at Atlanta Opera
"As a whole, Atlanta Opera's first ever production of Das Rheingold was a triumph for the company, despite some static moments in the stage action and uneven playing in the orchestra pit on opening night."
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Tosca at Houston Grand Opera
Tosca at Houston Grand Opera
"Making his HGO debut as Cavaradossi, Jonathan Tetelman sang with a tenor voice of uncommon strength and vibrancy, so that the intense poignancy of his 'E lucevan le stelle' stopped the show as it was meant to do."
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The Prodigal Son & The Burning Fiery Furnace at Oper Frankfurt
The Prodigal Son & The Burning Fiery Furnace at Oper Frankfurt
"Manuel Schmitt’s staging of Benjamin Britten’s 'church parables,' The Prodigal Son and The Burning Fiery Furnace, two works never before heard in Frankfurt, was a visionary and heartbreaking chamber production that ran for eight sold-out performances."
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Così fan Tutte at Komische Oper Berlin
Così fan Tutte at Komische Oper Berlin
"Five years after the premiere of his Così fan Tutte staging in Zurich, Kirill Serebrennikov, now freed from house arrest in Russia and living in Berlin, personally oversaw the staging's transfer to the Komische Oper. The opening salvo in the company’s new Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy, which the Russian theatermaker is set to direct, the production was uncommonly intricate and muscular for a revival, and which seemed partially due to Serebrennikov’s hands-on supervision."
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The Cunning Little Vixen at Manhattan School of Music Opera Theatre
The Cunning Little Vixen at Manhattan School of Music Opera Theatre
"Janáček's opera, adapted the piece from a newspaper comic strip, cannot be an easy opera to make theatrically intelligible. In Manhattan School of Music’s Opera Theatre staging, director Dennis Whitehead Darling in no way conquered Vixen’s difficulties. Its animal-driven nature notwithstanding, Vixen is a work of considerable pathos and humanity, one that mournfully acknowledges of the inexorable passage of time. None of this came through in the staging; even the Vixen’s death elicited nary a moment of contemplative melancholy."
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Allan Clayton & James Baillieu at Park Avenue Armory's Board of Officers Room
Allan Clayton & James Baillieu at Park Avenue Armory's Board of Officers Room
"The characterful tenor, working with accomplished pianist James Baillieu, did full justice to an unhackneyed program that showed a parallel but different side to his artistry than his imposing assumptions as Brett Dean's Hamlet and Britten's Peter Grimes these last two seasons at the Met."
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Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at English National Opera
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at English National Opera
"Given the popularity of Henryk Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, it is perhaps unsurprising that attempts are made to present the work in visual form. English National Opera's full-scale production, by designer/director Isabella Bywater, featured conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya leading a profoundly satisfying performance that managed to combine tautness with an overall freedom of approach."
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Janinah Burnett & Imani Winds at Zankel Hall
Janinah Burnett & Imani Winds at Zankel Hall
"Soprano Janinah Burnett, a veteran of Broadway’s Phantom, shone in the program's opening selection, Mary Lou Williams’s 'St. Martin de Porres.' Burnett’s creamy tone presided lovingly over the first movement, while the piece offered improvisational moments for the musicians of Imani Winds to shine and ended with a triumphant display of the soprano's range."
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Rusalka at Portland Opera
Rusalka at Portland Opera
"Elias Grandy's propulsive, exciting conducting was the overriding strength of many in Portland Opera’s first-ever presentation of Dvořák’s Rusalka, the company’s best production in years."
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Dogville at Aalto-Musiktheater
Dogville at Aalto-Musiktheater
"A tough, ambitious work, as cynical and unsparing as its source material, Gordon Kampe's Dogville featured a highly abridged version of Lars von Trier’s English-language screenplay to music, which telescoped the nearly three-hour-long film into a highly concentrated eighteen dramatic scenes that progressed inexorably, connected by highly evocative interludes that traversed wide-ranging musical styles and emotional orchestrations."
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La Bohème at The Metropolitan Opera
La Bohème at The Metropolitan Opera
"Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, on the podium for his first local performances of Franco Zeffirelli's staging of La Bohème, made the score scintillate, seemingly bringing a new-music freshness to his reading of an opera that has been in the company's repertory for more than 120 years."
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Blue at English National Opera
Blue at English National Opera
"Blue, given its first U.K. staging at ENO, can be applauded as a broadly successful treatment because it presents characters who are human in their complexity; and which even includes some humor—a device that might have been thought impossible in the treatment of such painful material. This virtue is at its most obvious in Thompson’s libretto, whose text allows its central characters sufficient breadth to be entirely convincing."
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I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky at IN Series
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky at IN Series
"Compared with the headline-generating Nixon in China and Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams's third opera has had a more modest profile since its premiere, but the issues of crime, racial prejudice, police brutality, immigration and sexual identity that course through the opera’s veins have become, if anything, even more relevant and stinging than they were in the 1990s. The work's momentum rarely sagged in the spirited new production presented by adventurous Washington, D.C.-based company IN Series and directed by company artistic director Timothy Nelson."
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Iphigénie en Tauride at Boston Baroque
Iphigénie en Tauride at Boston Baroque
"A dramatic soprano of infectious intensity, Soula Parassidis was a godsend as a last-minute sub, thoroughly prepared and radiating confidence in this semi-staged performance conducted by founding music director Martin Pearlman. The trio of Parassidis’s Iphigénie, baritone Jesse Blumberg, as her unrecognized brother Oreste, and tenor William Burden as Pylade, Oreste’s beloved companion, made this taut production memorable."
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Elizabeth Llewellyn & Simon Lepper presented by Vocal Arts DC
Elizabeth Llewellyn & Simon Lepper presented by Vocal Arts DC
"The amplitude and lustrous, enveloping quality of the London-born singer’s voice, which boasted particular richness in the low and middle registers, would have been enough to make the evening rewarding; consistent depth and nuance of expression made it doubly so."
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Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi at Juilliard Opera
Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi at Juilliard Opera
"Under John Giampietro’s direction, the set for the two one-acts was the same. At their core, though, both operas are about family dynamics; the stage direction of this production put an exhausting amount of work into equating the two works on a more philosophical level, but comparing a work about loss, rejection, pain, isolation and genuine mourning to a farce can be asking too much."
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Arminio at the Linbury Theatre
Arminio at the Linbury Theatre
"Despite the opera itself falling into total obscurity for nigh-on 200 years following its initial run, and even today remaining a rarity, Arminio turned out be far stronger musically and a good deal more dramatically involving than it is often given credit for. The plot’s complexities were intelligently conveyed in Mathilda du Tillieul McNicol's modern-dress staging, which held faith with the dramaturgy of the original while looking at the material through modern eyes."
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Iphigénie en Tauride at Opéra National de Montpellier
Iphigénie en Tauride at Opéra National de Montpellier
"Rafael R. Villalobos's production of Gluck's opera found parallels with the current war in Ukraine and the tragic destiny of those who had sought refuge in the bombed Mariupol theatre. But despite two short spoken extracts from Classical dramas, and a confusing number of extras miming scenes from the past, the work's plot remained secondary to the emotional turmoil of the central characters."
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Musica Sacra at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
Musica Sacra at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
"UK composer Kerensa Briggs was on hand for the New York premiere of her 'Hear my prayer,' which featured exquisite dissonances and notes sliding into one another, and although the text was only two lines, they struck a different emotional chord with each repeat. Solo voices emerged from the sixteen-voice choir like individuals surfacing from a morphing mass of humanity before the piece resolved on a hopeful major triad."
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Tao of Glass at NYU Skirball Center
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."
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Tosca at Florida Grand Opera
Tosca at Florida Grand Opera
"Florida Grand Opera's Tosca might well have been retitled Cavaradossi. Mexican-born tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz emerged as the central figure for his splendiferous vocalism, personal charisma and ability to communicate the emotional content of his lines with direct and immediate impact."
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Fatma Said and Rafael Aguirre at Weill Recital Hall
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."
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Stéphane Degout and Cédric Tiberghien at the Park Avenue Armory Board of Officers Room
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."
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Bernard Labadie & Orchestra of St. Luke’s, La Chapelle de Québec at Carnegie Hall
Bernard Labadie & Orchestra of St. Luke’s, La Chapelle de Québec at Carnegie Hall
"Leading a celebratory evening of Handel featuring Music for the Royal Fireworks, Coronation Anthems and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, Bernard Labadie’s relaxed energy on the podium kept the festive music lively without ever becoming frenetic, and the chorus, orchestra and soloists all communicated an operatic sense of occasion."
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Tosca at Heartbeat 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."
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Madama Butterfly at New Orleans Opera
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."
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Le Nozze di Figaro at Opera Omaha
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."
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Tacoma Method at Tacoma Opera
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."
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Abomination at Southbank Centre
Abomination at Southbank Centre
"In Abomination, a work of cutting satire, composer Conor Mitchell chooses humor over anger in his collation of the blatantly homophobic commentary, statements and slurs uttered by Democratic Unionist MP Iris Robinson. It was such statements made by whole raft of members of the Northern Ireland Assembly and/or the House of Commons at Westminster that formed the origin and ultimately virtually the entirety of Mitchell’s libretto."
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La Nonne Sanglante at Opéra de Saint-Étienne
La Nonne Sanglante at Opéra de Saint-Étienne
"The finest single moment of the evening came in the aria in which Rodolphe's father, the Comte Luddorf, regrets his poor past behavior with the nun. Despite looking decades younger than his son, Jérôme Boutillier showed again that he is one of the finest young French baritones of the moment, phrasing the aria with consummate skill and effortless tone."
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Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Grand-Théâtre de Genève
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Grand-Théâtre de Genève
"Calixto Bieito's production—which portrayed unbridled animal desire, acted with disturbing intensity by the entire cast—frames Shostakovich's opera as a film noir, reflecting the dark forces of violence and sexual abuse at the heart of the work. Aušriné Stundyté seemed to confirm that she has no equals as Katerina, and her nuanced inflections of the text and explosive soprano outbursts were coupled with acting of devastating commitment."
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Ariodante at Curtis Opera Theatre
Ariodante at Curtis Opera Theatre
"Omer Ben Seadia's staging oddly mixed keen direction of the six principals and their interactions with bafflingly bucolic eyewash movement for the chorus. Too many da capo arias occasioned dance steps and fussy business with props or gestures. Lucy Baker's impressive title hero had to greet or bro-hug every single other person onstage in a different manner while launching into her exultingly demanding 'Dopo note.' Sometimes it's all right to let Handel's singers just stand and sing!"
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La Bohème at Opera Philadelphia
La Bohème at Opera Philadelphia
"Yuval Sharon's innovative 'Backwards' take on Puccini's opera is brilliant, and its defamiliarizing of the beloved warhorse's situations and relationships proves quite illuminating. Here the director obtained fresh, nicely reactive portrayals from his cast, though the vocalism on offer wasn't of the standard-setting variety."
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Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera
Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera
"Rising Welsh director Adele Thomas’s new Trovatore staging for the Royal Opera achieved a level of visionary intensity where almost nothing that happened seemed implausible. And out in front was Jamie Barton’s Azucena, whose mezzo proved ideally scaled to both the role and the venue, while her commitment to each phrase and equally every move and gesture felt complete."
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Wozzeck at the Royal Opera
Wozzeck at the Royal Opera
"Christian Gerhaher took the role of the constantly harassed, mentally frail and abused soldier in Deborah Warner's new production of Wozzeck. At times, Gerhaher’s lyric baritone lacked the full weight required, and his approach, while thoroughly musicianly, had little suggestion of the proletarian about it. Despite his rare accomplishment as an exponent of Lieder, Gerhaher’s success in the creation of a stage personality was relatively limited."
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Henry VIII at La Monnaie
Henry VIII at La Monnaie
"Despite the scandalous drama of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn and his consequent break with the Roman Catholic church, Saint-Saëns's opera lacks convincing theatrical pacing, but La Monnaie did the work proud. Alain Altinoglu, the company's music director, promoted the work’s considerable musical qualities with exceptionally fine orchestral playing."
Recordings
STRAVINSKY/TCHAIKOVSKY: Mavra/Iolanta
Russian Fusion.
Director Axel Ranisch takes two wildly different works and creates an innovative fusion that heightens their themes.-
AUBER: Le Philtre
AUBER: Le Philtre
“Auber’s work merits attention for its irony, humor, economy and good tunes.”
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BONDS: Credo, Simon Bore the Cross
BONDS: Credo, Simon Bore the Cross
“These works deserve to be part of the standard repertory, and it’s time for Margaret Bonds to claim her place in the pantheon of important composers.”
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MATTESON: Boris Goudenow
MATTESON: Boris Goudenow
“About as remote from Mussorgsky’s historical epic as you can get.”
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Lea Desandre, Iestyn Davies: Eternal Heaven
Lea Desandre, Iestyn Davies: Eternal Heaven
“This reveals much of the beauty, expressive eloquence and musical imagination that make Handel’s English-language works so rewarding.”
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DONIZETTI: L’Elisir d’Amore
DONIZETTI: L’Elisir d’Amore
“Director Frederic Wake-Walker provides many original touches, but none of them prove illuminating. Javier Camarena, though, is flawless.”
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WOLF-FERRARI: Das Himmelskleid
WOLF-FERRARI: Das Himmelskleid
“The performance can’t quite shake an impression of reverence that ends up seeming timid.”
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CHASE/CLURMAN: Washington Women: A Choral Cycle
CHASE/CLURMAN: Washington Women: A Choral Cycle
“You wonder about the composers’ goal in creating these choral songs, setting texts by American political women.”
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Mark Padmore: Schubert: Schwanengesang
Mark Padmore: Schubert: Schwanengesang
“Padmore and pianist Mitsuko Uchida choose a distant and distended approach.”
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Matthias Goerne: Schubert Revisited
Matthias Goerne: Schubert Revisited
“It’s something like spending eighty minutes in a room where all the walls and the ceiling have been covered in the same elegant brocade wallpaper.”
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WLADIGEROFF BROTHERS: Magie
WLADIGEROFF BROTHERS: Magie
“An homage to Rainer Maria Rilke with tremendous warmth and originality.”
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Susan Narucki: This Island
Susan Narucki: This Island
“This thoughtfully considered presentation is so enjoyable. Repeated listening only makes this excellent recording more endearing.”
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Gevorg Hakobyan: Arias of Love and Sorrow
Gevorg Hakobyan: Arias of Love and Sorrow
“He’s a very serviceable dramatic baritone. The most valuable readings here are selections from Armenian operas.”
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Amanda Forsythe: Heavenly Bach
Amanda Forsythe: Heavenly Bach
“I have friends in Boston I can interest in attending a performance with the words, ‘Amanda Forsythe’s in it.’”
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Renée Fleming: Greatest Moments at the Met
Renée Fleming: Greatest Moments at the Met
“A treasurable collection of the Met’s once reigning prima donna.”
