Esoterics released the first recording of No. 10: Supreme Virtue in spring 2008.
Esoterics released the first recording of No. 10: Supreme Virtue in spring 2008.
Plucky Syracuse Opera has announced a new Little Women for 2009 with some of the more eccentric poster art (and spelling choices) this piece has ever seen...
Plucky Syracuse Opera has announced a new Little Women for 2009 with some of the more eccentric poster art (and spelling choices) this piece has ever seen...
...while the Israeli premiére of Little Women was given on July 31 in Tel Aviv.  Above Joyce DiDonato in the HGO revival..
...while the Israeli premiére of Little Women was given on July 31 in Tel Aviv.  Above Joyce DiDonato in the HGO revival..

Full Cry

For American Opera Projects’ reading this weekend of his first opera, the theatre composer Stephen Schwartz has mustered a mighty trio of sopranos.  Alongside the imperial Lauren Flanigan in the leading rôle of Myra, Séance on a Wet Afternoon features L. A.’s  Hila Plittman, the Dawn Upshaw of her generation: and Caroline Worra, going from strength to strength. Time Out New York features my salute to Caroline here.

Desperate Housewife

It has its risible moments.  When wide-eyed Dawn Upshaw, channeling Kafka via Kurtág, describes “coitus as punishment for the happiness of being together,” one can’t help murmuring to oneself that, perhaps, she’s doing it wrong. read more »

A Modest Proposal

DECEMBER 15, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

NEW YORK CITY OPERA’S INCOMING GENERAL AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ANNOUNCES REVAMPED FESTIVAL FORMAT, PLANS FOR 2010 SEASON; INTERVIEW FOLLOWS SEASON SCHEDULE  read more »

Faust Lite

The piece itself is completely mad: gorgeous, but mad.  To grasp Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, which the MET staged tonight for the first time since 1906, imagine David Del Tredici injecting bits of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius into Chabrier’s L’Etoile: an insouciant operetta/ballet periodically stun-gunned by jolts of pure Catholic fear and trembling.  And did I mention the Rákóczy March? read more »

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