Monday, April 18, 2016
When Broadway's Andrew Lippa was commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to write I AM HARVEY MILK for its 35th anniversary in 2013, the hour-long work was a success from the star…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:29AMThe world premiere production of a new work, I AM ANNE HUTCHINSON I AM HARVEY MILK--what the creators call a concept opera--takes place next Saturday, April 23, at the Music Center at Strath…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:00AMFriday, April 15, 2016
The premiere of JFK in Fort Worth on April 23 is a big step forward for composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek--who made a splash in contemporary opera circles with their post-…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:54AMWednesday, April 6, 2016
The Tudor Trilogy --putting together Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA, MARIA STUARDA and ROBERTO DEVEREUX--was fabricated to light Beverly Sills' fire as America's Queen of Opera at the old New York …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:59PMTenor Lawrence Brownlee, who's justly acclaimed for his high notes--forget about a high C; how about an F above that!?--just finished the New York premiere of the Daniel Schnyder opera CHARL…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:59PMTuesday, March 29, 2016
In THE ORPHIC MOMENT, a "dramatic cantata," composer-librettist-conductor-poet (phew!) Matthew Aucoin takes an 18th century masterwork, Gluck's ORFEO ED EURYDICE--perhaps the greatest of the…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:55PMFriday, March 25, 2016
MADAMA BUTTERFLY was never my favorite Puccini until the current production conceived by Anthony Minghella. Before, Butterfly always seemed too submissive, Pinkerton too brutish and their ch…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:48PMWednesday, March 23, 2016
Tenor Matthew Polenzani--he of the refined singing, elegant deportment and serious nature--is having a great season at the Met, with major roles in a pair of new productions. First, he was N…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:10AMPoint/counterpoint: As if to set off its trio of Elizabethan tragedies by Donizetti, the Met is presenting two of the master's comedies. First up: DON PASQUALE, and it was a pip. (The other …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:10AMThursday, March 17, 2016
LoftOpera, about three years old, is a darling of hip opera lovers of all ages in New York, as well as the mainline media, and its recent performances of Puccini's TOSCA make it easy to see …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:54PMWednesday, March 16, 2016
Judging by the Regina Opera's take on Donizetti's LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, which finished its run on Sunday, it doesn't have a hipster bone in its body, which, I think, would have been just fine…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:24PMFriday, March 4, 2016
Anna Netrebko came out on stage in a shimmering white and silver gown with matching headband, looking like an Art Deco goddess in a poster by Alfonso Mucha. It's a look that suited her--not …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:50AMWednesday, February 24, 2016
Lincoln Center's American Songbook series doesn't usually cross the road to opera-land, but I'm glad it did, when it presented the Ricky Ian Gordon-Leonard Foglia chamber opera A COFFIN IN E…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:56AMTuesday, February 16, 2016
Opera for the 21st century is more than setting RUSALKA in a whorehouse, populating RIGOLETTO with a cast of apes or sending MARIA STUARDA to a maximum security prison. It must start with a …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:44PMWednesday, February 10, 2016
With MARIA STUARDA at the Met, we're back for the second installment of Donizetti's so-called Tudor Trilogy, with ANNA BOLENA (Anne Boleyn) already off to the gallows and ROBERTO DEVEREUX (w…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:34AMMonday, January 25, 2016
Sometimes, the Metropolitan Opera seems like an endless Puccini festival. It's particularly apparent this season, when top dogs LA BOHEME, TOSCA and MADAMA BUTTERFLY are joined by TURANDOT a…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:29AMTuesday, January 19, 2016
It seems ironic--to me at least--that New York's venerable City Opera would be returning to life at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, just as the "Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now" festival…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:08PMThursday, January 14, 2016
One more BOHEME? Yet another TOSCA? How about BARBIERE redux? Sometimes the standard repertoire of opera companies seems too standard. That's why it was good to hear that the Met was mountin…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:41AMMonday, January 4, 2016
No more carping about out-of-tune singing (for the rest of 2015). No more bemoaning directors who don't seem to like the art of opera (for the next five minutes). No more worrying whether tr…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:46PMWednesday, December 9, 2015
On paper, Vivaldi's 1737 opera seria CATONE IN UTICA seems a big mess: The music from the first act is missing and musicologists can't agree what the third act should look and sound like, le…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:49PMMonday, November 23, 2015
The Met's production of Verdi's great opera RIGOLETTO, is often referred to as the 'Ratpack' version--because it is set in the Las Vegas days of Frank Sinatra and his high-living cronies. Fr…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:42PMTuesday, November 17, 2015
Who or what is Lulu, the eponymous character in Alban Berg's landmark atonal opera? Is she saint or sinner? Femme fatale or victim? Put-upon or mistress of her own fate? Whatever else she mi…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:08AMSaturday, November 14, 2015
The Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual galas--celebrating each year's winner of the Tucker Award to young American singers--are known for two things. First, they are notoriously fun ev…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:56PMThursday, October 22, 2015
Almost 40 years ago, on short notice, the great tenor Jon Vickers (who died this summer at 90) caused a scandal when he pulled out of the premiere of the Met's still-current production of Wa…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:12PMMonday, October 12, 2015
The Met came late to the trio of Donizetti operas about British queens, when it finally mounted ANNA BOLENA mounted for Anna Netrebko in 2011. This was long after Beverly Sills made her deal…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:05PMSaturday, October 3, 2015
Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky hadn't even opened his mouth, as the Count di Luna, when the audience went wild at the season's premiere of Verdi's IL TROVATORE. It was as if he had jus…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:23PMFriday, September 25, 2015
With the season's first performance of Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA on Saturday at the Met, the big news is that it's part one of soprano Sondra Radvanofsky's first Tudor Trilogy in New York. Alo…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 12:29PMThursday, September 17, 2015
When I heard mezzo Jamie Barton at the Metropolitan Opera's recital in Central Park in the summer of 2014, she would have knocked my socks off--if I hadn't been wearing sandals. This time ar…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:24PMTuesday, July 21, 2015
At a time when we're often inundated with yet another TOSCA, BOHEME or CARMEN at major opera houses, the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY--a couple of hours north of New York City in summer …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 12:14PMThursday, May 21, 2015
The Met was running on all cylinders for the last performance of the season, with Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA in an energized version of the production that premiered in 2012. The trio of p…
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:08PMFriday, May 15, 2015
It was "out with the old, in with the new" for another of the Franco Zeffirelli productions that were once the Metropolitan Opera's bread and butter, designed for audiences to cheer for the …
SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:54PM 
