Gregory Keller News

Every time I head to a performance of Puccini’s LA BOHEME, I can’t help but think of Bette Davis’s famous line from “All About Eve”: “I detest cheap sentiment.” But then I actually get there and, more likely than not, I feel genuinely moved, swept away by the mood that the composer and his librettists (Illica and Giacosa) have conceived through what seems like an endless array of gorgeous melodies in the Franco Zeffirelli production.

No matter what one thinks of the Met's transfiguration of Verdi's RIGOLETTO from Francesco Maria Piave's Mantua to '60s Las Vegas--I personally like much of this “Rat Pack” production from director Michael Mayer--the singing at Saturday's performance [the second of the season] was first rate.

Anyone who was expecting the equivalent of Bette Midler's arrival as Dolly in the Harmonia Gardens when Jonas Kaufmann finally returned to the Met, on October 17, after four years and some high-profile cancellations, must have been wildly disappointed. Oh sure, Kaufmann looked like a glamorous buckaroo and compared to some of the star tenor misfires already this season at the Met, he had a triumph.

LUISA MILLER isn't one of Verdi's greatest hits, written not long before RIGOLETTO but dramatically (and craft-wise) a quite a way off. Despite plenty of “love and intrigue,” Salvatore Cammarano'a libretto (based on the play of that name by Friedrich Schiller) never really takes flight, with too much exposition needed to justify the action. Still, when it's performed by a cast this good—and with the Met orchestra in fine form under Bertrand de Billy--it can be surprisingly potent. And this performance was.

Giacomo Puccini's LA BOHEME will play at The Metropolitan Opera through March of 2018, and the critics are weighing in!

The Minnesota Orchestra announces plans today for Sommerfest 2017, unveiling a celebratory summer festival in which the Orchestra salutes two of its artistic leaders: Doc Severinsen on his 90th birthday, and Sommerfest Artistic Director Andrew Litton, who has announced that this summer will mark his final season as the head of the festival. Running from July 3 to August 5, Minnesota Orchestra's summer season includes two tribute concerts to Pops Conductor Laureate Severinsen; performances by Litton and his friends André Watts, William Wolfram and New York City Ballet dancers; and culminates with the opera Litton has long wanted to conduct in Minnesota, Strauss' Salome. The summer season also involves the annual Symphony for the Cities concerts, two previously announced regular season programs and the return of the Minnesota Orchestra Fantasy Camp.

Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) will present its 2008 Pre-Election Series, a program of public readings and events timed to this year's historic presidential election.

Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) will present its 2008 Pre-Election Series, a program of public readings and events timed to this year's historic presidential election.

Tatum O'Neal, Vanessa Aspillaga, and over two dozen more stars have signed on to LAByrinth Theater Company's Live Nude Plays, a free marathon festival of staged readings of six new works on Monday, April 16th.

Casting has been announced for the first week of Summer Play Festival shows