Review: Plenty of High Notes at Unusually Low-Key Richard Tucker Awards Gala Photo
by Richard Sasanow
- November 01, 2023
An historic recording of golden age tenor Richard Tucker singing “Sound an Alarm” from Handel’s JUDAS MACCABEUS” set the tone for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s Gala concert at Carnegie Hall. There was wonderful singing ahead of us—but of a certain kind.
Like many other classical organizations, the Tucker Foundation, has found that, as Charles Dickens said in “A Tale of Two Cities,” “It was the best of times, the worst of times.” The “best” is for the quality of the singers that the foun...
Review: Orth-Moscovitch Stunning MADHOUSE Tells of Women Past the Verge of a Nervous Photo
by Richard Sasanow
- September 27, 2023
When composer Rene Orth came across the story of investigative reporter Nellie Bly’s expose of the abuse of women at an asylum in New York at the end of the 19th century, she immediately knew that “this story needed to be told as an opera.” She was right.
The result of her efforts, with the first-rate creative team including librettist Hannah Moscovitch, is 10 DAYS IN A MADHOUSE, a 90-minute work that opened Opera Philadelphia’s festival (this year, called O23) with its world premiere at the Wi...