PARIS – The Opéra national de Paris opened its season with 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, a project created by, and starring, performance artist Marina Abramović. The diva's sundry expirations come mostly at the hands of actor Willem Dafoe.
NEW YORK – On Site Opera boarded a 19th-century tall ship Aug. 28 for What Lies Beneath, an immersive music theater event weaving the slave trade and other vicissitudes of the high seas into a mournful and affecting program.
PHOENICIA, N.Y. – This woodsy hamlet has grown the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice into an energetic and engaging event that saw productions this summer of Mascagni's L'amico Fritz, Verdi's Rigoletto, and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
BERLIN – Though presented in the pandemic's long shadow, stellar concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Konzerthaus Orchestra drew elated audiences who offered Champagne salutes and even (a rarity) got to their feet to cheer.
BREAKING NEWS - The creation of a diverse team under the collective aegis of The Industry, Sweet Land, invoking America's untold story, is the winner of the 2021 Music Critics Association of North America’s Best New Opera Award.
LENOX, Mass. – The Boston Symphony Orchestra's truncated Tanglewood season concluded with wonderful Brahms conducted by Herbert Blomstedt and a tour of John Williams' great film scores under the composer's baton.
PERSPECTIVE – Tines, who has burst onto the world's music stages, commands a range of more than three octaves, from low D to high E-flat. He says he is neither a bass nor a baritone: “It’s a broader conception of how to think about voice.”
PERSPECTIVE – The Leuven Chansonnier, a tiny 600-page volume of 50 secular songs that turned up in a 2014 auction in Belgium, has sharpened our sense of what early music means, how it should be performed, and what it says to us.
DIGITAL REVIEW – Longer than the Beethoven and the Brahms, the expanse of Elgar's concerto has perhaps limited its popularity. Still, in appealing new CDs, Nicola Benedetti and Renaud Capuçon lend the work its full measure of indulgence.
DIGITAL REVIEW – Kavanagh Plays Kavanagh, the latest album by Dale Kavanagh, rides on the strength of the Canadian guitarist’s impeccable technique, which elevates her work as a composer of short pieces in an engaging style.
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – After losing a season to Covid in 2020, the Glimmerglass Festival reopened outdoors as “Glimmerglass on the Grass.” Despite weather that swung from chilly rain to hot sun, there was much to celebrate.
SAN DIEGO – Cultural San Diego has a new attraction to compete with the beaches and the Zoo. It's the San Diego Symphony's snazzy and imposing downtown waterfront performance venue known locally as The Shell.
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – The Grand Tetons Music Festival, beloved for its natural grandeur, draws a faithful band of musicians from all over the U.S. as well as Europe. Says one veteran player: "I see those mountains and breathe a sense of release."
DIGITAL REVIEW – The streaming eight-part series desert in, co-produced by Boston Lyric and Long Beach Opera, spotlights a starry roster of creators and performers. Stay at the desert in, and find your dead lover. (Don't expect happiness.)
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The plinks and plunks of Frederic Rzewski’s Amoramaro, written for pianist Lisa Moore’s birthday before the composer died in June, paled in comparison with Philip Glass' fluid Mad Rush, also heard in Moore's recital.
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – The Berkshire Opera Festival production pulled no punches, like the work itself by composer Tom Cipullo, about a real-life Green Beret and nine-year POW who returns home from Vietnam to a life in ruins.
LENOX, Mass. – The Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood was reduced to three concerts this year, but composer-curator Thomas Adès still managed variety, programming thirteen works by twelve composers from seven countries.
DIGITAL REVIEW – The Michael Tilson Thomas era at the San Francisco Symphony is over, but the melody lingers on in CDs. Now added is a Berg disc that includes existing recordings of Three Pieces for Orchestra and the Violin Concerto.
SANTA FE, N.M. – John Corigliano's The Lord of Cries, which blends The Bacchae with Dracula, came to the stage in a stunning Santa Fe Opera season also notable for a potent Eugene Onegin: All told, a reminder of what we’ve been missing.
LOS ANGELES – The 93-year-old Thea Musgrave was on hand to wave to the crowd at the LA Phil's U.S. premiere of her Trumpet Concerto -- after British virtuoso Alison Balsom delivered a shining turn through the work with conductor Tianyi Lu.
