There are more famous operas than Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN (The Woman without a Shadow), but you won't find one that is more exciting when all the pieces--and there are lots …
Maybe next time around, the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Peter Gelb will hire film director Quentin Tarantino to do a production of Puccini's TOSCA. With its sordid story, self-invol…
It's not often that singers make their debuts on Broadway and then make a splash at the opera, but that's what happened when Paulo Szot--a Tony winner for "South Pacific"--opened in the Met'…
With a story that is somehow poignant despite its scatological language, ANNA NICOLE's heroine is nicer than Berg's LULU, less lucky than TRAVIATA's Violetta and more cunning than MANON's Ma…
From its earliest days, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival has included opera among its offerings, although I recall no production being quite so acclaimed as Iván Fischer's DON GIOV…
Is Lincoln Center planning to change its summertime schedule from "Mostly Mozart" to "Basically Beethoven"? If so, they couldn't have picked a better concert to put the point across than the…
When last heard on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, mezzo Isabel Leonard and soprano Erin Morley were a couple of nuns on their way to the guillotine in LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES. Thi…
The Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY said "Bon anniversaire, Joseph Vert"--that's "Happy Birthday, Giuseppe Verdi" in French--on Saturday night, with a performance of LES VEPRES SICILIENNES,…
Katarina Dalayman is one of a handful of top Wagnerian sopranos in the world, but for the first act of the Met's GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, the climax of the Met's second 'Ring' cycle of the s…
What would the Metropolitan Opera (and its audiences) do without its production of Francis Poulenc's DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES, which opened for the season with Saturday's matinee, May 4?…
New York City Opera's production of Jacques Offenbach's LA PERICHOLE feels right at home at City Center, home of the "Encores!" series, which reintroduces audiences to lesser known Broadway …
The groans were audible--no, powerful--when the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Peter Gelb stepped out in front of the curtain on the second night of the company's new David McVicar pro…
Soprano Diana Damrau--star of Michael Mayer's acclaimed 'Ratpack' RIGOLETTO--talks about creating her role debut as Violetta in the Metropolitan Opera's Willy Decker production of LA TRAVIAT…