Maybe Richard Eyre's new production of WERTHER for the Metropolitan Opera, with strong performances by German tenor Jonas Kaufmann and French mezzo Sophie Koch, should have been called WERTHER: THE BACKSTORY or WERTHER: A FOOL'S GUIDE.
THE TENOR, the new novel by BWW's Classical Music Editor, Peter Danish, is a sweeping tale of a young tenor, that extends from pre-war Italy to his coming of age as a soldier in war-torn Greece, and ends in 1965 with Maria Callas' historic final performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.
Like the young Anthony Hope in Stephen Sondheim's scintillating SWEENEY TODD, “I've sailed the world, beheld its wonders…,” with SWEENEY TODDs ranging from the original cast in New York, to an all-Japanese version in Tokyo, and have never failed to be thrilled by it.
At a time when we're bombarded by lurid stories—in books, newspapers, television and film—it is a tribute to Richard Strauss's SALOME, first performed in 1905, that it has lost none of its impact and ability to shock.
Was baritone Thomas Hampson looking for some last-minute pointers at last night's concert performance of Alban Berg's WOZZECK with the Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic under music director Franz Welser-Most at Carnegie Hall? If he did--his role debut at the Met is Thursday--then he came to the
Monteverdi's “Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda” twice in one season in New York, in performances only months apart? Especially after Anna Caterina Antonacci's riveting take on the 20-minute work last November at the Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, what more could a small opera company
What does an opera singer do on his night off from singing the title role in Massenet's WERTHER in a new production at the Metropolitan? If he's the charismatic wunder-tenor Jonas Kaufmann, he heads over to Carnegie Hall to conquer another world, with his recital debut in an evening of German art so
When I last heard bass-baritone Gerald Finley in New York, he was a nameless prisoner in a dungeon during the Spanish Inquisition, in Dallapiccola's IL PRIGIONIERO with the New York Philharmonic.
PRINCE IGOR was a glorious mess when Alexander Borodin died suddenly in 18, leaving it to others to finish a work he'd toiled on for nearly 20 years but hadn't quite made whole.
He was the dashing yet fickle prince in the Met's HD Live broadcast of Dvorak's RUSALKA and the womanizing Duke who concluded that “La donna e mobile” (“Woman is fickle”) in last year's “Ratpack” RIGOLETTO at the Met as well.
It wasn't Theodora, but the Carnegie Hall audience, who went wild on Sunday at the performance by the English Concert of Handel's rarely heard THEODORA.
If your musical taste runs to Elliott Carter--or even Nico Muhly, whose TWO BOYS premiered at the Met this fall--then Kirke Mechem's THE RIVALS, which had its NY premiere this month at the Bronx Opera Company, may not be your cup of tea.
There was a lovefest for the great mezzo Marilyn Horne in New York last week, filled with the music of friends, acquaintances and admirers at Carnegie Hall's sibling, Zankel Hall.
Before seeing the Met's new production of Johann Strauss Jr.
“Dying is easy; comedy is hard” says the old show business quip.
Just what the opera world needs: Another director who doesn't have an idea about what to do with an opera.
On Broadway, when a revival loses two out of three of its stars, the production might very well be put off until another season or, at worst, the producers might pack it in.
Live from New York, it's soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci! Lucky for us.
There are more famous operas than Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN (The Woman without a Shadow), but you won't find one that is more exciting when all the pieces--and there are lots of them--come together.
Handel wrote over 1000 da capo arias—a musical mainstay of Italian baroque operas--during his career, but none more thrilling than “Let the Bright Seraphim.
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