A Hampstead Garden Opera production to mark the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi's birth.
Mary NguyenLondon,
It's a bunch of firsts for the Hampstead Garden Opera and their new production of Claudio Monteverdi's marvellous opera L'incoronazione di Poppea. Hosted at the Jackson Lane Theatre, it is the first time they are performing with surtitles and ...
Andrew OsborneAustin,
When I was growing up, I discovered new music the old-fashioned way: radio, MTV, and mixtapes from cooler friends.
Now, with the proliferation of streaming services, file sharing sites, digital downloads, Sirius XM, groovy cable TV ...
Michael McDonaghSan Francisco,
What do we expect when we go to hear a pianist play a famous dead composer's work? Do we want a radically "new " take on it, or do we want it served straight? And if that composer ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
“Tosca” … it is Puccini … what’s not to like? True, and it is probably his best opera. But LAOpera’s current production is a “Tosca” to love, not simply like. With glorious voices that are every bit a match for ...
Bay Area premiere of Philip Glass' Symphony No. 11 (2016)
Michael McDonaghPalo Alto,
Virgil Thomson used to say that the French played Brahms better than the Germans, and maybe the Austrians play Americans better than Americans. This seemed to be the case when the brilliant American conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who has been ...
LiveConnections pairs a Cuban percussionist and a New York-based string quartet.
Lewis WhittingtonPhiladelphia,
LiveConnections is a magnet music/arts collective that crosses musical boundaries and brings together artists from different genres for their concert series and continued community engagement. On February 25 at World Café Live in Philadelphia, they presented the stellar Harlem ...
Patricia Racette stars in this LA Opera Production.
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
Whether your orientation is religious or secular, if your culture is western the name Salome probably conjures up images of seduction and grisly obsession. She is depicted in the bible. She is seen frequently in European painting. The gruesome image ...
Mary NguyenLondon,
The ENO has revived an original Jonathan Miller production that took flight in 1982 – it received rave reviews regarding its unique and authentic stage work. Back in 1982, Miller’s innovation came from shifting Verdi’s original 19th century Italian Renaissance ...
A reappraisal of a Mike Leigh production after a 2015 review.
Mary NguyenLondon,
Returning after two years is Mike Leigh’s inimitable production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, which is notably stronger in direction and performance compared to its first outing. It didn’t make the cut for some critics who complained ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
Opera folks have their quibbles. There are those who want a classic staging, just as audiences would have seen at the times the operas were written. The fewer liberties, the better. And then there are those who believe resetting the ...
