"Cherubino is crazy in some ways, in good ways," says Isabel Leonard, who is singing the role of the young male page in the Almaviva household in the Metropolitan Opera's new Richard Eyre pr…
More than most stagings of Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, the new Richard Eyre production that opened the season at the Met made it hard to remember that the miserable duo who head the househo…
In New York, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX will forever be associated with Beverly Sills' powerful portrayal of Elizabeth I, and her stern photo glaring out from the cover of Time Magazine. H…
When New York's Gotham Chamber Opera--in collaboration with the Gerald Lynch Theatre at John Jay College--presented Toshio Hosokawa's THE RAVEN in its US premiere last week, as part of the N…
Despite its visions of damnation and redemption, Gounod's FAUST, with libretto by Barbier and Carre, is pretty tame stuff. In the wrong hands, it can be dull as well. Well, you can't accuse …
"The party's over," wrote Betty Comden & Adolph Green in BELLS ARE RINGING. "It's time to call it a day." The opera season at the Metropolitan said its farewells to 2013-2014 on May 10 with …
When the Met's production of LA CENERENTOLA, Rossini's version of the Cinderella story. arrives in movie theatres around the world next week, the star for many will be tenor Juan Diego Flore…
One of the thrilling things about live opera performance is that it's like watching a tightrope walker, particularly when it's one with as many high notes and such florid writing as in Belli…
By this time in the Met's season, audiences can be a little "been there, done that"--but not when it came to Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, singing the title role in Puccini's MADAMA BUTT…
Of all the music that Richard Strauss wrote during his long career"and he'd composed almost 60 songs and more than 40 piano works by the time he was 18"perhaps none are more gorgeous and m…
In our age of 20-somethings suffering from arrested development, they say "25 is the new 15." This certainly was not true at the Met auditions concert (formally, the Metropolitan Opera Natio…
It's always reassuring when a change of cast--in this case soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Javier Camarena in wonderful performances--transforms a truly terrible production into an exciting n…
I thought someone spiked the water cooler backstage at the Met during the first half of LA BOHEME on March 19. Tenor Vittorio Grigolo's Rodolfo jumped around in the opening scene like he had…
When the Vienna State Opera visited New York at the end of February, it brought Alban Berg's WOZZECK to Carnegie Hall as part of the "Vienna: City of Dreams" festivities. With the big sound …
"I'm not a warhorse kind of singer," mezzo Susan Graham states matter-of-factly. "A. I'm a mezzo. B. I'm not a character mezzo. C. I'm not a contralto. The iconic opera repertoire for mezzos…
Like the young Anthony Hope in Stephen Sondheim's scintillating SWEENEY TODD, "I've sailed the world, beheld its wonders...," with SWEENEY TODDs ranging from the original cast in New York, t…
Like the young Anthony Hope in Stephen Sondheim's scintillating SWEENEY TODD, I've sailed the world, beheld its wonders, with SWEENEY TODDs ranging from the original cast in New York, to an …
Monteverdi's "Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda" twice in one season in New York, in performances only months apart? Especially after Anna Caterina Antonacci's riveting take on the 20-min…
What does an opera singer do on his night off from singing the title role in Massenet's WERTHER in a new production at the Metropolitan? If he's the charismatic wunder-tenor Jonas Kaufmann, …
He's the dashing yet fickle prince in the Met's HD Live broadcast of Dvorak's RUSALKA, on February 8, and was the womanizing Duke who concluded that "La donna e mobile" ("Woman is fickle") i…
It wasn't Theodora, but the Carnegie Hall audience, who went wild on Sunday at the performance by the English Concert of Handel's rarely heard THEODORA, starring Dorothea Roschmann and David…
Before seeing the Met's new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s DIE FLEDERMAUS, directed by Jeremy Sams, on Saturday night, I listened to the afternoon's live broadcast of Mozart's THE MAGIC …
"Dying is easy; comedy is hard" says the old show business quip. If anything, opera comedy is even harder. Why is it so difficult? Because it offers so many opportunities to do a disservice …
On Broadway, when a revival loses two out of three of its stars, the production might very well be put off until another season or, at worst, the producers might simply pack it in. In the op…
Live from New York, it's soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci! Lucky for us. Antonacci is considered one of those distinctive, uncategorizable singers who show up every once in a while to excite …