Michael McDonaghBerkeley,
Life is complicated. More than one thing is going on whether we like it or not. This could be a definition of music too because it's a celebration and a leave-taking and we're always doing both. We say hello as ...
Janos GerebenSan Francisco,
San Francisco's Merola Opera Program does a world of good for super-talented young singers about to launch their careers, but this time an event might have given them an incorrect impression about what to expect from music directors.
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Mary NguyenLondon,
Glyndebourne has returned to the Proms for Rossini’s mad opera of disguises and shaved beards, where the smiles and double entendres never seem to end. It is the first time that the BBC Proms have added The ...
A Documentary about Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble
Michael McDonagh
We all want to be loved. We all want to belong. But what do you do if your house is bombed and everyone in it dies? Do you become bitter, or take the high road? And what do you do ...
A new live recording by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Lewis Whittington
Conductor Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra continue their stellar series of performances of the works of Dmitri Shostakovich with their Deutsch Grammophon release “ Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow,” a 2-cd set with their live performances of symphonies ...
Mary NguyenLondon,
Despite how musically rich and sensitive Janáček’s opera Jenůfa is, its grotesque storyline, which includes the murdering of a child, is not. It captures a sample of small-town life in Moravian Slovakia during the mid-1850s, which first influenced Gabriela Preissová ...
With Finnish soprano Karita Mattila leading a magnificent cast, this production of Janáček's folk opera makes for an immersive experience.
Suzanne WeissSan Francisco,
The last time I saw Karita Mattila in “Jenůfa” she played the title role, a young village girl madly in love with the town ne’er-do-well and secretly carrying his child to boot. Now, her gleaming voice burnished with maturity, the ...
Fine (often spectacular) singing saves this overlong, drab, and static production.
Suzanne WeissSan Francisco,
The trouble with Verdi’s “Don Carlo” always has been — like much of Wagner — too much of a good thing. Requiring no fewer than six stellar singers in the leads, making it very costly to mount, it clocks in ...
Frances WilsonLondon,
“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between”
This quote from Mozart seems particularly apt for Steven Osborne’s recent concert at London’s Milton Court which featured music by Morton Feldman and George Crumb, two radical ...
Lewis WhittingtonPhiladelphia,
Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) continues to sound more at home in Verizon Hall, with every concert they play in Philly. Their May 15 tribute to the music legacy of Miles Davis ...
