CLASSICAL MUSIC THEATER REVIEWS

'Amadeus' Live score performed by the musicians of the New York Philharmonic...

Currently, the New York Philharmonic is presenting the movie masterpiece Amadeus with live orchestrations as part of their Art of the Score series. They have removed the prerecorded orchestral and choral elements from the film and replaced them with live manifestations. It's breathtaking and require...

Cristian Macelaru made a favorable impression as guest conductor here last year and was scheduled to return again, a sign that he may have been on the short list of possible choices for Jahja Ling's replacement. But the San Diego Symphony has selected Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare as its new mu...

I must admit that Christ Church Cathedral Choir--performing at New York's St. Thomas Church 5th Avenue last week to kick off a final tour with retiring Music Director/conductor John Darlington--knocked my socks off with the first part of its program. The men and boys of the choir--a 500-year-old ins...

BWW Review: TCHAIKOWSKI 6TH SYMPHONY by The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony...

BWW Review: ROCKTOPIA - A CLASSICAL REVOLUTION at The Broadway Theater...

Just about the most spectacular opera event of the season so far arrived at Carnegie Hall Sunday afternoon, with the English Concert and Harry Bicket making their annual foray into Handel territory, with a superb RINALDO....

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and violinist Lisa Batiasvhili presented a concert of Schubert and Prokofiev riches on March 24,2018....

As classical music presentations continue to innovate in the 21st century, it's paramount that a keen eye remains focused on the purpose of this innovation. Innovation for innovation's sake will fail every time. And, unfortunately, Philharmonia Orchestra of New York (PONY) fell victim to this pitfal...

The San Diego Opera's production of Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas was premiered Saturday at San Diego's Civic Center. Much has been made of the influence the magical realism of Nobel-Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez had on Marcela Fuentes-Berain's libretto, but most of the magic...

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra, with first violinist and music director Joshua Bell, performed Friday night at San Diego's Jacobs Music Center as part of the La Jolla Music Society's ongoing Orchestra Series. Over the years the series has featured only the best of the world...

Edo de Waart has become a welcome repeat guest-conductor for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. His no nonsense, experience-based authority at the podium appears to have won the respect of players, Symphony management-and certainly, San Diego audiences. Friday's finale brought an immediate standing o...

BWW Review: NJ SYMPHONY PERFORMS BRAHMS AND MAHLER at Bergen PAC...

The San Diego Opera's new production of Puccini's Turandot held rapt attention throughout its three acts in spite of a dark plot that's implausible even for opera, and a lead character less loveable than Lady Macbeth. Powerful men from other kingdoms flock to win Princess Turandot's hand by answerin...

Having your artistic brain-children paraded before you in celebration of your life must be a surreal experience - one that John Corigliano is, now, very familiar with. National Sawdust recently hosted his 80th birthday celebration and packed the evening with his compositional gems, peppering the pr...

In most music schools, faculty recitals are a standard part of student life. Attendance, while not mandatory, is expected because it is assumed the student will learn something from the performance. Sometimes it isn't exactly what the professor may have intended...A faculty recital at The Juilliard ...

Sameer Patel, Associate Conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, made his subscription series debut with Liszt's Les Preludes, the fifth symphony of Sibelius, and the world premiere of Adam Schoenberg's violin concerto Orchard in Fog. Les Preludes is one of 13 tone poems written by Liszt. He ...

BroadwayWorld Sydney was given an exclusive taste of ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: UNMASKED: THE PLATINUM COLLECTION ahead of it's release on 16th March 2018 through Universal Music. ...

An Orpheus concert can always be counted on to be a rich, exciting experience for the audience. The February 3rd 2018 concert was certainly no exception....

In many areas of the arts in New York, January is a quiet month. But in the opera world, the last few weeks certainly have been jumping. It has also been a fine time for asking 'What is an Opera?' For me, January started with Prototype 2018's ACQUANETTA and ended this past weekend--with many in betw...

On January 27, 2018, Los Angeles Opera presented the Bernstein work at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with a cast that included Emmy-winning television star Kelsey Grammer. He is best remembered for his two-decade-long portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the situation comedies Cheers, Wing...

Conducting with a combination of precise hand signals and smooth sweeping arm gestures, Jader Bignamini went all-out to please and entertain in his guest appearance with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and he succeeded. The familiar works he selected seemed to form a spectacular five-movement co...

Ok, y'all…I'm going to be honest. A cappella - or as my aunt, with her charming ignorance, would call it 'acapulco singing' - is just not my jam. Groups that sing sacred 'hits' without vibrato has never been a way I'd choose to spend an afternoon. Maybe it's because I suck at this type of singing?...

After a string of cancellations--including the Met's new TOSCA--tenor Jonas Kaufmann made a triumphant return to New York last Saturday at Carnegie Hall, in a recital with his frequent collaborator Helmut Deutsch. Of course, he could have been singing the telephone book and this audience would have ...

On the weekend of the women's march, it was refreshing to see a female at the helm of Carnegie's Sunday afternoon programming. Janine Jansen owned the stage with strength and conviction, cementing the importance of the female perspective in life, art, and business proving the perfect cap to an imp...