Free-Form Operas Share Space With Met Museum Art
By Judith Malafronte
NEW YORK - No need for proscenium stages, as the Metropolitan Museum of Art proves in places normally quiet. La Celestina, a video opera, resounded in the Vélez Blanco Patio. There was song at the Temple of Dendur, too.
Opera Monodrama By Mazzoli Shows Promise In Concert
By William Albright
HOUSTON - Inspired by words of Isabelle Eberhardt, a Swiss nomad who died in an Algerian flood in 1904, Missy Mazzoli's chamber opera, bound for LA Opera, was showcased by Da Camera with Abigail Fischer as the bold but ill-fated explorer.
2 Young Singers, Paired In Recital, Are Twin Delights
By David Shengold
NEW YORK - Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and soprano Nadine Sierra, who won George London prizes in 2010, sang at Palm Beach Opera in 2011 and shared digs at Glimmerglass in 2013, were a duo at Morgan Library.
Italian Soprano’s U.S. Stage Debut Double Triumph
By Diane Windeler
SAN ANTONIO - In her first fully staged U.S. performance as a soprano, Anna Caterina Antonacci closed Opera San Antonio's inaugural season with a neoclassical bonbon by Wolf-Ferrari and Poulenc's wrenching La voix humaine.
Dudamel, LA Phil Take Plunge Into New Italian Music
By Richard S. Ginell
LOS ANGELES - Gustavo Dudamel is known worldwide for his extroverted conducting, his wild mop of curly hair, and his dedication to Venezuela’s El Sistema youth orchestra program. Angelenos also know him as a daring programmer.
Sibelius at 150: Probing Depths Of The 7 Symphonies
By Jason Victor Serinus
SEATTLE - "There was an element of irrationality which intrigued me a lot," says the Seattle Symphony's new principal guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard, a longtime advocate of Sibelius who now leads an extensive tribute.
Piano Duo Honors Modernist Boulez With Recital Tour
By Nancy Malitz
Pierre Boulez composed first for piano, prompting Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich to take a closer look. And a recent multimedia project the composer worked on at the brink of 90, A Pierre Dream, will tour and stream.
French ‘Don Carlos’ Another Coup For Grand Verdi Cycle
By Arthur Kaptainis
SARASOTA - The cheer that met the final curtain gave evidence of how compelling Verdi's much-mangled "Don Carlos" can be in its original uncut form. At just short of five hours, Sarasota Opera's take is 102 percent complete.
Certified Brahms From Vienna In Carnegie Concerts
By Ken Smith
NEW YORK - The relationship between orchestra and conductor is rarely clear-cut. Who is responsible for what? In the Vienna Philharmonic's Brahms, it was clear. Daniele Gatti provided the beats, the orchestra everything between.
High-Tech Videos Light Fire Under Seattle’s ‘Semele’
By Philippa Kiraly
SEATTLE - Handel's opera may never have been seen as it is now presented at the Seattle Opera, with imaginative use of computer-generated images. Although musically the production hews to Baroque style, visually it's 21st century.
You Can Tell, Just By Looking, She’s Planning A Heist
By Leslie Kandell
NEW YORK - In Mona Lisa, the 1915 opera by Max von Schillings, her husband's a mean old jewel merchant and she intends to run away with her lover and some pearls. The show had its heyday, then disappeared until now.
Maestro Mälkki Set To Lead Fantasy Opera ‘Alice’ In LA
By Richard S. Ginell
LOS ANGELES - Susanna Mälkki has arrived at the 21st-century music temple known as Walt Disney Concert Hall to lead the West Coast premiere of Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland. It's a new take for the LA Phil's series in/SIGHT.
Honoring Strauss, Concert Puts Spin On Metamorphosis
By Mike Greenberg
SAN ANTONIO - In a city-wide festival of music by Richard Strauss, the SOLI Chamber Ensemble and Ballet San Antonio collaborated to provide fresh arrangements and contexts for the familiar Metamorphosen and Morgen!
‘La donna del lago’ Makes A Belated Splash At The Met
By Judith Malafronte
NEW YORK - It took nearly 200 years and a bel canto revival for Rossini’s opera seria sensation to come to the Met, although audiences first saw it here just ten years after its 1819 premiere. Joyce DiDonato stars but Scotland's drab.
LA Opera Conjures Corigliano’s ‘Ghosts’ And La Révolution
By Richard S. Ginell
LOS ANGELES - The idea behind Corigliano's 1991 The Ghosts of Versailles was Beaumarchais’ third Figaro play, but Almaviva's story is only one thread in an opera involving Marie Antoinette and the guillotine's threat.
Yannick Displays Russian Sound Of Rotterdam In U.S.
By Rick Schultz
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - In his seventh year leading the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Yannick Nézet-Séguin says Russian music is still in its blood, a gift of his predecessor. After a start in the American west, the U.S. tour heads east.
At Seattle Opera, New Era Wafts In Via New Zealand
By Philippa Kilraly
SEATTLE - “He has the best kind of youthful passion in what opera can mean,” says a colleague of Aidan Lang, who brings global experience to his first season as general director, eyeing an edgier image and the inevitable new Ring.
Andrew Patner, Noted Arts Critic, Dies Suddenly
By Lawrence B. Johnson
A WFMT-FM executive recalled the “voice, keen intelligence and great spirit” of the Chicago broadcaster and contributing classical music critic for the Sun-Times, who died at 55 after a brief battle with a bacterial infection.
In New Opera, Music Pries Open A Sealed Mind
By Charles T. Downey
WASHINGTON, D.C. – What goes on in the minds of those diagnosed with autism? Penny, with a tonal score by Douglas Pew and libretto by Dara Weinberg, attempts to delve into this mystery through the medium of music.
