The groans were audible--no, powerful--when the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Peter Gelb stepped out in front of the curtain on the second night of the company's new David McVicar production of Handel's GIULIO CESARE.
Besides singing her dream role of Violetta for the first time anywhere, soprano Diana Damrau was also RIGOLETTO's Gilda in the Met's new 'Ratpack' production that was seen by millions worldwide as an HD broadcast in February.
I've always been a sucker for a good vampire story--and Heinrich Marscher's opera DER VAMPYR fits the bill, though I don't expect it to turn up at the Metropolitan Opera any time soon.
Andre Previn's operatic version of Tennesee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, with a libretto by Andrew Littell, made its belated New York debut at Carnegie Hall on Thursday.
Expect the unexpected from cabaret stylist Patricia Racette.
With a popular opera by Rossini already co-opting the title OTELLO, Verdi momentarily thought about calling his work IAGO, after the story's villain.
On Sunday afternoon March 10, the air was buzzing with anticipation at the Met, before the performances by the ten singers who had made it to the Grand Finals of the opera company's National Council auditions.
The English Concert's spectacular performance of RADAMISTO had me from its first notes and swept me away to its unlikely but happy ending.
There used to be an ad campaign from a New York bakery company, “You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's rye bread.
She is a beast to an exceptional degree.
If God is in the details, Christine Jones must certainly be praying at the right church.
Full disclosure: I'm not fond of updating operas.
For the music alone, you can't beat Verdi's IL TROVATORE, with a demanding string of arias that, in the right hands (or voices), can raise the rafters.
You have to love the Italians--particularly the Milanese.
Once upon a midnight dreary (sorry, 'Raven'), Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' was perhaps the favorite of his short stories adapted as horror films for mid-20th century audiences.
There's usually not much in the way of fireworks in New York between New Year's and July 4th, but there certainly is no shortage of pyrotechnics in the Met's new Maria Stuarda, which is having its long-overdue premiere in the house.
I missed the debut and broadcast of Andre Previn's operatic setting of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" from the San Francisco Opera back in 1998.
With all the attention being paid to the French Revolution these days, thanks to the film of "Les Miserables," it probably seemed like a good idea for Opera Orchestra of New York to mount ANDREA CHENIER, Giordano's opera about a poet during the downfall of the monarchy in 18th century France.
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