CLASSICAL MUSIC THEATER REVIEWS

Charlotte Symphony's celebration of Italy with music by Berio, Berlioz, Paganini, and Mendelssohn's ITALIAN SYMPHONY actually peaked with Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1, thanks to the spectacular virtuosity of Sergej Krylov....

It was a rare event, two symphony orchestras on stage at the same time, and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was spectacular. He first set a carefree festive mood with the drinking song from Puccini's La Traviata, performed with Viennese flair by the Mariinsky Orchestra and six singers from the Mari...

On Friday October 26, 2018 the mostly sold-out crowd of avid listeners heard the music of a slate of 19th and early 20th century Russian composers, conducted by the Russian-born conductor Tugan Sokhiev in his New York Philharmonic debut series....

Site-specific performances are the latest thing for opera companies wanting to venture into works that wouldn't comfortably fit in a 500-, 1000- (or more) seat theatre. New York City Opera has tried this in the past, but never in a venue quite as intimate or louche as Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker St...

The first program in the San Diego Symphony's 2018-19 Jacobs Masterworks series featured conductor Edo de Waart and pianist Joyce Yang. So did the second, and that's far from a complaint. Three or four more from them this season would be fine with me. The concert format was also unchanged from we...

The first concert in the San Diego Symphony's 2018-19 Jacobs Masterworks series included oft-returning guest conductor Edo de Waart and pianist Joyce Yang. The program consisted of Nocturne by contemporary composer Michael Ippolito which was premiered in 2012, and two familiar works, Grieg's piano ...

Pianist Lang Lang all but disappeared from the concert stage late last year while recovering from an arm injury caused by intensely rushed practice of Ravel's concerto for left hand only. Now back touring, he was the main draw for the opening of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra's 2018-19 season. Hi...

Charlotte Symphony has kicked off its 2018-19 season with an all-Beethoven program highlighted by the FIFTH SYMPHONY and a guest turn by pianist Garrick Ohlsson, adding an extra performance to meet anticipated. They're also meeting great expectations...

Anyone who has ever taken piano lessons, whether as a child or as an adult, will vouch for the fact that it is not an easy instrument to learn. Reading music simultaneously on two separate lines, instantly coordinating what the eye sees with what the hands play can take years to perfect. Now, imagin...

The cannons boomed, bells rang, and spectacular multicolored fireworks exploded overhead as the SDSU Aztec marching band, including eight tubas, joined the San Diego Symphony to celebrate Russia's victory over Napoleon! Tchaikovsky would have been delighted, though probably secretly so since he said...

Lincoln Center's MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL is over for the season and finished up with a program that was an oddity because it wasn't mostly Mozart (or no Mozart) but all Mozart. Well, hooray for the 18th century. I was happy to be back in the bosom of the festival's namesake. Does that make me a bad p...

In 1962 West Side Story won 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Musical. Is it still worth seeing more than half a century later? Sure is! Jerome Robbins' energetic choreography remains riveting, and Leonard Bernstein's marvelous score is a perfect frame for Sondheim's affecting lyrics...

It was with great anticipation that I attended this concert....

Ashley Fure's and Adam Fure's THE FORCE OF THINGS: AN OPERA FOR OBJECTS--one of this week's unusual attractions at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival--took place at Brooklyn's Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet. As far as I could tell, that first sentence was filled with misnomers: no ...

'Carnival,' the opening concert in Cho-Liang Lin's last season as music director of the La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest, was an unusual jumble of works. Bartok's Contrasts for clarinet, piano and violin was written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. It is based on Hungarian and Romanian folk da...

As has become the norm with the Mostly Mozart Festival in recent years, the Monday, July 30th Emerson String Quartet concert at Alice Tully Hall included some unusual programming choices. Aided and abetted by guest violist Ms. Nokuthula Ngwenyama, the quartet became a quintet and presented a fascina...

With Frank Fetta conducting the Marina del Rey Symphony and Nancy Dobbs Owen's Portrayal thru Dance of Leonard Bernstein's and Jerome Robbins' famed works, in celebration of his 100th Birthday, this marvelous concert took place at Marina del Rey's Burton Chase Park, where the ocean meets the land. T...

The San Diego Symphony's 2018 Bayside Jazz Series continued with 'Godfathers of Latin Jazz,' a concert inspired by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's merger of bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Dizzy had wanted something new for a 1947 Carnegie Hall concert, 'One of those tom toms' he said, thinking of the dif...

French music ensemble La Camera delle Lacrime unites with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (ABO) for a wonderful exploration of world music in KARAKORUM: A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY....

Anyone who loves Leos Janacek's gorgeous but grim operas--JENUFA, KATYA KABANOVA, MAKROPOLOUS--might be surprised by THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN. It's being presented, now through August, in a handsome production at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY....

Daniela Mack is Isabella, an Italian pilot, who makes an emergency landing in Algiers and is captured by its ruler, the Bey. He wants an Italian girl for a wife but she loves Lindoro, the Bey's Italian slave. L'ITALIANA has lots of good bel canto singing and plenty of comedy to keep you smiling all...

With today's society in constant need of visual stimulus, staging oratorio repertoire has become increasingly necessary. Gone are the days where a chorus can stand solemnly still in their tuxes and black dresses, holding their binders at hip height, while soloists sit downstage in bedazzled gowns an...

It is not every day one is able to enjoy a concert in the magnificent palace of Monaco. Nevertheless, for a few days in summer, the palace opens its doors for the Palace Concerts, featuring the Philharmonic Orchestra of Monte-Carlo with guest conductors and soloists from all over the world, making a...

Thamos, King of Egypt,  a play by Tobias Philipp, baron von Gebler, premiered in 1774. Mozart completed incidental music for it, the 18th Century equivalent of a movie soundtrack, in 1780. Before Mainly Mozart's performance of a concert version of the play, conductor Michael Francis, with a typical...

Orpheus could charm the very stones with his lyre and his singing. Just such magic can be seen on the stage of Opera Theatre St. Louis when Jennifer Johnson Cano portrays the mythical superstar in the company's current production. She gives an utterly stunning performance....