Intimate Opera Canvas Painted With A Mother’s Crisis Of Resolve, Pain
PITTSBURGH – Jennifer Higdon's opera Woman with Eyes Closed, based on a Rotterdam art theft and premiered at Pittsburgh Opera, is an intense family drama that probes the question of what lengths a mother would go to protect her child.
Mixing Edge, Sensitivity, String Quartet Meta4 Ventures Beyond Canon
SAN DIEGO – As their unusual name (from first-name initials) hints, the Finnish ensemble Meta4 is not your grandfather’s string quartet. At the University of California San Diego, the group offered an eclectic program that has become rare.
In A Land Of The Tallest And The Mostest, This Festival Was Middling
DUBAI – One of the seven members of the United Arab Emirates, this modern-day city-state, bursting with growth, is home to the InClassica International Music Festival, where concerts in a gorgeous opera house offered variable rewards.
Seattle Opera’s New General Director Bows With Season To DEI For
SEATTLE – Alongside The Pirates of Penzance and Carmen, James Robinson's lineup for 2025-26 includes the LGBTQ+ opera Fellow Travelers and the Gay Apparel holiday show hosted by tenor John Marzano in his drag persona, Anita Spritzer.
Boston Baroque’s Most Original Instrument, Its Founder, Stepping Down
BOSTON – Martin Pearlman was in his twenties when he established the period-instrument group then known as Banchetto Musicale. Half a century and many Grammy Awards later, he will retire after a run April 24-27 of Handel's Ariodante.
In ‘Good News Mass,’ Gospel And Blues Mix With Echo Of Bernstein
LOS ANGELES – American composer and activist Carlos Simon acknowledges that his bountiful, hourlong, 16-movement work, which received its premiere by the LA Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, owes a debt to Bernstein's 1971 Mass.
Transcending Death Only To Watch Life Fray, All On An Opera Stage
NEW YORK – Walking home one evening, Godfrey Rainbird, contented married father of two, is struck by a car and dies. Three days later, he miraculously returns to life. That's the setup for Aaron Siegel and Mallory Catlett's opera Rainbird.
A Powerful ‘Moby-Dick’ Seizes The Met Stage (Don’t Call Him Ishmael)
NEW YORK – Tenor Brandon Jovanovich heads the cast as the vengeful and obsessive Capt. Ahab in composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer's adaptation of Herman Melville's novel. But the adventure's sole survivor has been renamed.
In Dreamscape Concert, French Maestro Weaves Legends And Mysteries
NEW YORK – In an evocative program of Romantic songs and choruses titled "My Dream," 40-year-old countertenor-turned-conductor Raphaël Pichon led the Orchestra of St. Luke's, soprano Ying Fang, and baritone Christian Gerhaher.
2 Composer-Performers Merge Personalities In Rarefied Concert Fare
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Multi-talented composers Caroline Shaw (who sings and plays viola) and Gabriel Kahane (singer-pianist) showcased their new, albeit well-traveled, collaborative work Hexagons, on Jorge Luis Borges' fanciful text.
Northern Lights: Polished Singers Spark Two Canadian Concerts
VANCOUVER – Vancouver Recital Society offered exceptional vocal programs back to back: a local premiere by soprano Barbara Hannigan with pianist Bertrand Chamayou and Schoenberg by Hila Baggio with the Israeli Chamber Project.
‘Dream Of Red Chamber’ In Revised Opera Guise Delivers New Intimacy
MINNEAPOLIS – Bright Sheng's opera based on an epic Chinese novel received a lavish production for its San Francisco Opera premiere in 2016. A scaled-down version, newly staged at the University of Minnesota, refocuses the story.
Project To Celebrate New Music Outshines Compositions It Honors
MONTREAL – Prizes offered by the Canadian-based Azrieli Foundation are generous, the juries impressive, the performances first-rate. And the applicant pool is international. The prizewinning works at a gala choral concert were hit and miss.
Youthful Mozart Opera, With Some New Twists, Is Glittering Vocal Show
BOSTON – Mitridate, written when Mozart was 14, consists mainly of a parade of arias notable for their punishing tessitura and relentless coloratura. The starry cast at Boston Lyric Opera met every challenge with uniform brilliance.
Weinberg Opera Rarity And ‘Hamlet’ In Concert Score High At Salzburg
SALZBURG – This year’s Salzburg Festival boasts an impressive variety, from a new staging of Weinberg’s The Idiot, the summer's hit, to recitals and a concert treatment of Thomas’ opera Hamlet – in which the melancholy Dane is crowned king!
Britten Opera Revels In Dream Al Fresco Setting, And In Midsummer, Too
WORMSLEY ESTATE, U.K. – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its intimate forest setting, is the perfect summer-festival opera. How fitting to see it at Garsington Opera, an al fresco enterprise located in a woods between London and Oxford.
Not Quite Traditional: ‘Ring’ Without The Rhine, But Rewards Are Golden
ZURICH – At its best, live opera is a visceral experience. Zurich Opera delivered just that with Wagner’s full Ring cycle. Conductor Gianandrea Noseda led the Philharmonia Zürich with a fine cast headed by Tomasz Konieczny's Wotan.
Batons, Bowings, Beats: A Maestro’s New Guide To Modern Masterworks
BOOK REVIEW – Leonard Slatkin’s new book belongs to a distinguished tradition, reflecting a lifetime of study and podium experience at the highest level. And it can be absorbed by anyone with a working knowledge of how to read music.
Quasi-Robotics Concert, Where AI Perhaps Stood For Almost Involved
SAN FRANCISCO – The 10th season of the San Francisco Symphony's SoundBox series ended with a conceptually fascinating program called “Press Play,” curated by “Carol Reiley and her robots.” But it needed more AI compositions.
An Oboe Ode To Joy: Youth Meets Diversity In A Profusion Of Delights
SEATTLE – Artistry and camaraderie shared top billing at Oboe / Oboe, a high-spirited concert presented by Emerald City Music, whose creative series aspires to open classical music to younger and more diverse audiences and performers.
