CLASSICAL MUSIC THEATER REVIEWS

Have you ever wandered why two cheesecakes based on one recipe are slightly different? Even tough you use the same flour, sugar and cheese the taste is not the same. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse. But if you take great ingredients like Traviata, big budget, good voices, Grazyna Szapolo...

Austin Opera's latest effort, Verdi's, RIGOLETTO dazzles in every way. They absolutely outdid themselves this time....

The programming for Rafael Payare's first season as the San Diego Symphony's music director and conductor anticipates next year's celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.  The schedule includes four symphonies, three concertos and an overture by that great composer. The entire sec...

Auspicious debuts seem to be in the air in NYC this fall. Last month the new Athens Philharmonic blew the roof off Carnegie Hall with an extraordinary Mahler 2 in its debut, and this month a new ensemble called Parlando did the same at Merkin Hall - in a vastly different kind of program....

Composer Jean-Féry Rebel was something of a rebel (sorry could not resist) in late 17th and early 18th century France for his use of unusual often dissonant harmony. Les Elémens ('The Elements') which describes the creation of the world was a radical work for its time and still feels surprisingly ...

Rafael Payare's honeymoon with the San Diego symphony orchestra has barely begun, but I'm ready to predict a long and happy marriage. His energetic and emotional conducting brought unexpected excitement to even an ultra-conservative program of Schumann, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. The opening Overtur...

The magic of the WNO's THE MAGIC FLUTE is that it is captivating for all ages and a tempting proposition for first-timers and opera-buffs alike....

An delightful evening of great music and learning was presented at the Italian Academy at Columbia University....

a?oeDouble, double, toil and troublea?? has made its way to His Majesty's Theatre, but instead of this famous line being spoken by the usual three witches, it (or an approximation of it) is sung in Italian by eighteen classically trained witches. WA Opera's production of Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth ope...

The San Diego Opera's AIDA served Verdi's marvelous score without the usual extravagant sets and throngs of spear-carrying tunic led Egyptian soldiers. Although that conceded a bit of excitement, especially during the triumphal march scene, exceptional singers and musicians held the audience's atten...

A Baroque composer, albeit the most important of his time (or of all time, as many are of the opinion) on the same program as a Romantic composer, one of the plethora of musical innovators of the 19th century? How could such music possibly be of interest?...

On Monday October 14, 2019, Arizona Opera and its Valley Friends presented a concert of arias by the Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artists at the Mon Orchid Gallery, a small hall with excellent, if somewhat live, acoustics. As a rule, AZ Opera chooses six singers and one pianist to be their studio arti...

THE ATHENS PHILHARMONIC 'MAHLER 2ND' at Carnegie Hall...

It's an exciting time for San Diego classical-music lovers. There are more concert choices than ever before, and performance quality has been impressive for everything from solo recitals to symphony concerts and operas. The La Jolla Music Society's $82 million dollar multi-stage Conrad Prebys Arts C...

Birgit Nilsson, one of the greatest Turandots of our time, was fond of saying that Wagner made her famous but TURANDOT made her rich. Why was this so? Simply because very few sopranos can toss out the high notes, cut through the thick orchestration and sing over the huge chorus, which are the minimu...

Opening Night at the Metropolitan Opera! The very words tingle with palpable electricity and anticipation. Whether you attend in person, or go to the Times Square simulcast, or whether you listen on the radio or on the Met website, you are participating in one of the most thrilling events of the Ne...

Prom 50 featured the Orchestre de Paris playing three pieces: Robert Schumann's Genoveva-overture, Jörg Widmann's Babylon Suite, and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F major, a?oePastorala??....

A soldier gone to a far off war, absent for years. His wife in anguish, not knowing whether she's a widow. It's a story far older than The Odyssey....

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted an evening of music where emotion overrode pristine beauty....

Union Avenue Opera is on a roll! Two homers in a row! First their sublime Candide, and now an equally fine production of Puccini's La bohème. Union Avenue knocked them both right into the bleachers, and those of us who were lucky enough to catch one of those prize performances now own a true treasu...

The fifth season of Summer Evenings during the 2019 Mostly Mozart Festival presented 3 delightful concerts, featuring soloists Anthony McGill, clarinet, and Sharon Isbin, guitar....

*****#JakubHrusa builds a wondrous labyrinth of melodies with @bambergsymphony and @JoshuaBellMusic in the original #BohemianRhapsody @BBCProms...

Twenty-five years ago in Grand Rapids, the Van Andel Arena still was on the drawing board. Meijer Gardens had opened just three months earlier, but it would be many years before an outdoor amphitheater would be built as a venue for summer concerts.   At Cannonsburg Ski Area, on a steamy evening in ...

Every so often, a production comes around that leaves you pondering about the show when it is done. For me, it's usually a jarring show that asks the audience to think about how we see things in the world, and if the way we see things can be adjusted or not. Des Moines Metro Opera's (DMMO) product...

Run, don't walk, to see the brilliant CANDIDE at the Union Avenue Opera in St. Louis! This is the opening production of their twenty-fifth festival season, and it is, for my money, the most wonderful of the many lovely shows they've done....