Verdi’s Early ‘Ernani’ Soars As Stellar Cast Lights Up Fraught Tale
CHICAGO – Terrific singing and wonderful production values ruled Lyric Opera of Chicago's opener for the 2022-23 season. The tragic story of a love quadrangle featured superlative principals under Lyric music director Enrique Mazzola.
A ‘Lucia’ For Everyone: Rust Belt Regietheater As Gesamtkunstwerk
LOS ANGELES – Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is supposed to be a singers’ opera, but I may never think of it that way again after seeing Simon Stone’s take as a vibrant, theatrically rounded image of lower-middle class American life in 2022.
Our Critic’s Soliloquy On A Shakespearean Opera By John Adams: ‘Meh’
SAN FRANCISCO – The usually imaginative composer's Antony and Cleopatra, written for the San Francisco Opera's centennial, is an outlier, a conventional opera and middle of the road effort that mostly falls short of interesting things to say.
Chants Of Hildegard Flower In Creepy Space (With A Furtive Mouse)
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Performing in the dark void of the catacombs of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, soprano Daisy Press embellished the 11th-century Hildegard von Bingen's exquisitely beautiful chants with effects of Hindustani ragas.
To Celebrate SF Opera’s Centenary, John Adams Turned To Shakespeare
SAN FRANCISCO – The company opens its 100th season with the world premiere of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra. "John was energized by doing a work that blended the intimate and the public,” said general director Matthew Shilvock.
In Pastoral Vastness, Grand Art Harmonizes With Music’s Intimacy
FISHTAIL, Mont. – Set amid rolling hills, mesas, and grasslands framed by rugged mountains and the vast Montana sky, Tippet Rise Art Center beckons with a unique intersection of pristine nature, large-scale sculpture, and chamber music.
Brahms Goes Baroque: Style Turns Murky As Festival Wanders Afield
LANGLEY, Wash. – At the Whidbey Island Music Festival, director Tekla Cunningham, who performed on Baroque violin, noted that Brahms was not the festival’s usual fare. Given what we heard, this hardly came as a surprise.
Pair Of Mozart Operas, As Summer Concerts, Amuse With Gravitas
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. – It was an odd coupling offered on consecutive nights at the Ravinia Festival, the proto-Romantic Don Giovanni and an opera seria, La clemenza di Tito, both led by James Conlon, but the match proved compelling.
Maestro Marches To His Own Festival Drum – Or In This Premiere, Flute
CHICAGO – In his 23 years as conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival, Carlos Kalmar's bold programming has included 22 world premieres. The latest, Christopher Theofanidis’ Flute Concerto, spotlighted soloist Marina Piccinini.
Classic Piano Displays Its Enduring Charms In Showcase Performance
ASHBURNHAM, Mass. – An 1877 Bösendorfer, part of the Frederick Collection of restored grand pianos from the 1790s to 1928, made an impressive performance debut under the hands of pianists Daesik Cha and Clemens Teufel.
Frisson Of New Music Puts Al Fresco Edge On S.D. Symphony Summer
SAN DIEGO – Mason Bates' fanciful multimedia piece Phlharmonia Fantastique capped a program led by Jason Seber that included Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, which still feels relatively contemporary.
Amid Natural Splendor Of Bravo! Vail Festival, NY Phil Invokes Mahler
VAIL, Colo. – Led by Jaap van Zweden, a profound account of Mahler's Sixth Symphony marked the pinnacle of the New York Philharmonic's annual residency at this six-week festival tranquilly set in a national forest valley famous for its skiing.
Barrier-Breaking Alsop Hands Baton To Women In A Festival Showcase
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. – Conductor Marin Alsop, who had to blaze her own career path in the 1980s, now boosts a younger generation of women conductors. Several performed at the Ravinia Festival's first "Breaking Barriers" event.
Marlboro Music, Where The Old Guard Gathers And Lemonade’s Still $1
MARLBORO, Vt. – In its 71st year, the enterprise founded by Rudolf Serkin, and now co-directed by pianists Jonathan Biss and Mitsuko Uchida, draws musicians who combine serious purpose with a joyful time. A concert was a moving experience.
Into The Past, The Dark, The Unconscious: Wryly, Merrily ‘Into The Woods’
NEW YORK – A limited engagement of the musical, now extended through Oct. 16, marks Broadway's first posthumous Stephen Sondheim revival in the form of a concert staging, though it was announced before his death in November 2021.
On A Hot Day, Heggie’s ‘Decembers’ Opera Has Listener Pining For One
CHATHAM, N.Y. – Jake Heggie's intimate chamber opera Three Decembers, a three-hander about a narcissistic Broadway actress, became two sweaty hours relieved by warm bottled water. Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala dominated the lead role.
Wild Ride At The Bowl: Director Gallops In With A Bold Spin On Wagner
HOLLYWOOD – Act III of Die Walküre, probably the most-often performed act in Wagner's Ring cycle, saw Valkyries on digital motorcycles in a version by director Yuval Sharon at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil under Gustavo Dudamel.
Young Ensemble Mines Wagnerian Nuggets In Enterprising ‘Rheingold’
MIAMI – Das Rheingold received an innovative production at the Miami Music Festival, a training program for young singers and orchestral musicians created by conductor Michael Rossi. The cast all sang their roles for the first time.
In Flourish Of Sparkles, Yuja Wang Flashes Her Liszt At Tanglewood
LENOX, Mass. – They were all back: the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the manicured Berkshires estate, the smiles. And Yuja Wang stepped in for Jean-Yves Thibaudet, bouncing through Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 to the audience's delight.
‘Red Chamber,’ An Epic Chinese Novel, Proves Classic Stuff Of Opera
SAN FRANCISCO – Great novels may rarely make great opera. But the high emotions and multiple deaths in Dream of the Red Chamber fit the opera profile. An adaptation by Bright Sheng and D.H. Wang is on display at the San Francisco Opera.
