Lulu
In William Kentridge’s production of Alban Berg’s LULU at the Metropolitan Opera, consciousness comes, hesitantly, into being, fragments, reconfigures itself, then shatters again, and is still, ho...
Tristan and Yseult
The story of Tristan and Isolde shares with Romeo and Juliet a special status among the archetypes of love, which for the Romantics was a thing so strong that it doomed its feelers, its sublimity fulf...
Poe X 2
It was interesting, recently, to see two stage treatments of the works, and in one case the life, of Edgar Allan Poe. Interesting, that is, in the differences and similarities between them and in the ...
The Descent of Orpheus
St. Paul’s Chapel is a lovely place, the sort of structure that tempts the non-believer to belief and, no doubt, reconfirms adherents in theirs. That aesthetics can have such an effect is one of mys...
Baden-Baden
The first of four pieces in BADEN-BADEN 1927, Gotham Chamber Opera‘s update and reassessment of the German spa-town festival held in that year, is Milhaud’s “Abduction (or Rape) of Europa.” It...
New York Opera Alliance
The New York Opera Alliance, a consortium of 29 of the smaller operatic entities in New York, presented a wonderful showcase of the city’s talent on Sunday afternoon at (le) poisson rouge. A wid...
Giacomo Variations
Michael Sturminger’s GIACOMO VARIATIONS places the protagonist of the title – whom we know better as Casanova – at the end of his life looking back not only on his romantic conquests but...
Moses in Egypt
With the parting of the red curtain last week at City Center, The New York City Opera returned home from its long exile to Lincoln Center and other venues. The music to Rossini’s MOSES IN EGYPT ...