March 2023
RYAN SPEEDO GREEN: STAR OF THE MET PREMIERE OF CHAMPION
Proximity at Lyric Opera of Chicago • Broadway’s Donna Murphy • Rare Catharsis: A Case for Lohengrin • That’s Italian: The Tenor Tune in Rosenkavalier • Composer John Luther Adams • Sound Bites: Jana McIntyre
Features
Star Status
Ryan Speedo Green became a celebrity more than six years ago, but only now, with the April 10 company premiere of Champion, will he take up the mantle of a full-fledged Metropolitan Opera star.
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Close Encounters of 3 Kinds
Close Encounters of 3 Kinds
Director Yuval Sharon brings Proximity, a singular triple bill, to Lyric Opera of Chicago.
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Interrupted Melody
Interrupted Melody
Star tenors have shone in the Italian Singer's Aria in Der Rosenkavalier.
Departments
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Operapedia: Waterways
Operapedia: Waterways
In Review
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Lohengrin at the Bavarian State Opera
Lohengrin at the Bavarian State Opera
It was a stroke of genius to engage French conductor François-Xavier Roth to lead Lohengrin for his Bavarian State Opera debut. Roth drew inspired playing from his orchestra; waves of sound soared into the auditorium, but he never swamped the voices of the outstanding principals.
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Fedora at The Metropolitan Opera
Fedora at The Metropolitan Opera
The Met presents a new David McVicar staging of Giordano’s romantic melodrama Fedora.
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Boris Godunov at Teatro alla Scala
Boris Godunov at Teatro alla Scala
Kasper Holten’s new production of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece at La Scala proved as visually gratifying as it was musically persuasive.
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Eliogabalo at Zurich Opera
Eliogabalo at Zurich Opera
Francesco Cavalli's Eliogabalo provides an explicit portrayal of the titular emperor’s serial sexual adventures with men and women, his penchant for cross-dressing and the violence of his assassination. Those elements seemed to ensure that Calixto Bieito, opera’s enfant terrible, would be the appropriate director for Zurich Opera’s new production.
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Il Giustino at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Il Giustino at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Vivaldi's Giustino, written for the Roman Carnevale in 1724, rediscovered in 1922 and performed in 1985 for the first time since its premiere, became the first work by the Venetian composer to be performed at the Berlin Staatsoper in its 280-year history when it was presented by René Jacobs and his Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin as part of the Staatsoper's an early-music minifestival.
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Mitridate, Re di Ponto at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Mitridate, Re di Ponto at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
The long-awaited arrival of Satoshi Miyagi’s sensational new production of Mitridate, Re di Ponto, planned for November 2020 and delayed two years by the pandemic, was a particular cause for celebration after the house's multi-year clunker of da Ponte cycle.
Recordings
Everything for Dawn
Everything for Dawn, featuring the work of ten composers and seven librettists tells a refreshingly original story created by the Writers’ Room, a new Experiments in Opera initiative that brings together creative artists to develop a single large-scale project every season.
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HANDEL: Amadigi di Gaula
HANDEL: Amadigi di Gaula
"Listening to this instrumentally impressive (and beautiful engineered) new Chandos recording under Christian Curnyn, I couldn’t help but wish that the four singers who presented this opera last April with Boston Baroque, fully invested in the Italian text and possessed of trills, had been captured for wide release instead of Curnyn’s generally more than adequate but rather anodyne soloists."
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Pygmalion: Mein Traum
Pygmalion: Mein Traum
"The latest recording from ensemble Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon is their most audacious yet. Joined by baritone Stéphane Degout, who carries six hefty numbers, this is programming as well thought-out and provocative as any on recordings."
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RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: The Golden Cockerel
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: The Golden Cockerel
"Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Cockerel is the kind of satire that would physically endanger its creators in Russia today. Barrie Kosky’s 2021 staging for Lyon, now available as a strong contender in the opera's very mixed video legacy, doesn’t advance a specific political referent but is definitely a production worth watching."
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A. DAVIS: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
A. DAVIS: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
"X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is not so much an opera as a Passion. The 1986 work takes the form not of an evolving narrative but of a series of tableaux depicting key junctures in the activist’s life. Its scenes are like Stations of the Cross, with Anthony Davis’s brilliant jazz score providing the illumination."
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MEYERBEER: Robert le Diable
MEYERBEER: Robert le Diable
"Marc Minkowski’s intense pacing keeps the drama boiling, but not without some collateral vocal damage. While the 'provincial' chorus and orchestra attest to the recent improvement of regional ensembles in France."
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A. SCARLATTI: Griselda
A. SCARLATTI: Griselda
"Alessandro Scarlatti's opera’s first appearance on DVD is from a production at the 2021 Festival della Valle d’Itria, commemorating Griselda’s three-hundredth anniversary."
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HERSCH: the script of storms
HERSCH: the script of storms
"A whole album full of these compelling but often disturbing vocal pieces in one sitting might be too much for many listeners. Regardless, Hersch is determined to represent the dark, unfathomable side of human existence in his art, and his singular vision, coupled with astonishing compositional skill, makes it difficult to turn away."
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Fatma Said: Kaleidoscope
Fatma Said: Kaleidoscope
"Soprano Fatma Said follows up her tantalizing debut album, El Nour, with a recital built around dance-influenced songs and arias drawn from a range of genres, from opera to pop."
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HANDEL: Theodora
HANDEL: Theodora
"Ever since Peter Sellars’s groundbreaking 1996 Glyndebourne production of Theodora, it has been clear that the sixty-five-year-old composer’s penultimate oratorio has the dramatic legs to be staged as opera. With a starry cast headed by Lisette Oropesa in the title role, this recording is now the one to beat."
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BLECH: Alpenkönig und Menschenfeind
BLECH: Alpenkönig und Menschenfeind
"Leo Blech's fifth opera, had considerable success at its Dresden premiere in 1903. Musically, everything is first rate on this debut recording, with the Sinfonieorchester Aachen (from Blech’s hometown) delivering a thoroughly idiomatic reading of this lively score under the baton of its British music director, Christopher Ward."
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Croisette: Opérettes des Années Folles
Croisette: Opérettes des Années Folles
"It’s hard to say how satisfying any of these carefree operettas from Les années folles would be in full for a contemporary audience, but as a sampler of this niche genre, these lively selections are guaranteed to lift your mood."
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Jodie Devos: Bijoux Perdus
Jodie Devos: Bijoux Perdus
"In a tribute to the nineteenth-century diva Marie Cabel, her compatriot and fellow soprano Jodie Devos performs excerpts from several Cabell roles, evoking impressive range and brilliance. The recording is noteworthy for the strong musical and vocal standards that mark Devos’s own work, making a tribute disc also an attractive self-portrait."
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SCHUBERT: Die Schöne Müllerin
SCHUBERT: Die Schöne Müllerin
"This new entry to the lists of Schöne Müllerin recordings (seven score and counting) was made in October 2020. It features a new adaptation for guitar by the proficient virtuoso and composer David Leisner, working with baritone Michael Kelly, a dedicated new music advocate."
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Anna Lucia Richter: Brahms Lieder
Anna Lucia Richter: Brahms Lieder
"Brahms’s songs don’t take care of themselves; they are deceptive on the page in the way they seem to be straightforward, but the challenges are subtle. In these performances by Anna Lucia Richter, we don't think about the challenges, which is a fine tribute indeed."
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Adam Plachetka: Molieri
Adam Plachetka: Molieri
"Adam Plachetka’s musicianship and genial presence make him a welcome performer in the opera house. But he brings scant individuality to the standard Mozart items here."
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LULLY: Acis et Galatée
LULLY: Acis et Galatée
"The French early-music ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, founded and directed by harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset, celebrates its thirtieth anniversary with a fresh and sure reading of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s 1686 Acis et Galatée."