Review: With Great Music But Little Jesting, RIGOLETTO Returns to the Met
by Richard Sasanow - Oct 7, 2024
“This is not a cathartic tragedy or a tale of noble sacrifice. There are no admirable characters here, no moral lesson, no redemption, and no silver lining. There is only a merciless depiction of society’s dark side,” say the Met’s program notes for RIGOLETTO. I’m not so sure.
Review: Exquisite THE HOURS by Puts Triumphs Again at the Met under Watanabe
by Richard Sasanow - May 13, 2024
When I first heard Kevin Puts’s gorgeous, melodic score for THE HOURS back in 2022, I was blown away, thinking it was almost too good to be true. Could it be a classic? I wanted to hear it again, though not too soon, to give it a chance to settle in its own skin. Lucky us—lucky me—that the Met brought it back so quickly. It reminded me that first impressions are sometimes on the mark.
Review: Sierra, Bernheim Soar in the Met's ROMEO ET JULIETTE
by Richard Sasanow - Mar 10, 2024
While I’ve admired soprano Nadine Sierra’s before, she seemed to reach a whole new level with her glorious turn as Juliette in the season’s first performance of Gounod’s ROMEO ET JULIETTE at the Met the other night. She was vivid and a delight to watch as she inhabited the teenaged heroine of the piece. Perhaps it was her stage partner, French tenor Benjamin Bernheim, who egged her on to such heights, with his nuanced singing and boyish demeanor.
Review: Are Met Audiences Blue? Yes, Because TRAVIATA Has an Angel
by Richard Sasanow - Mar 11, 2023
Soprano Angel Blue’s Violetta didn’t seem as tragic as we’re used to seeing in Verdi’s masterwork and maybe that's right. She’s lived life on her own terms and if she’s dying of tuberculosis, well, c’est la vie. (After all, the source of the piece is French: the Alexandre Dumas fils “La Dame aux Camellias”).
Review: Exquisitely Subtle CARMELITES Makes Another of Its Brief Stops at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - Jan 20, 2023
I’ve heard the opera a number of times at the Met over the years and this year’s run holds up with the most breathtaking of them. Despite the number of star performances among the magnificent ensemble currently being heard at the Met, the star of the show doesn’t have a single word to say or note to sing. It's the John Dexter production that does it.
American Symphony Orchestra To Perform Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony & Ethel Smyth's Mass In D, January 27
by A.A. Cristi - Jan 10, 2023
The American Symphony Orchestra continues its 2022-23 season on January 27 with a program at St. Bartholomew's Church, a New York National Historic Landmark, exploring music for organ and orchestra by Camille Saint-Saëns and Dame Ethel Smyth. It features soloist Paolo Bordignon, organist and choirmaster of the church and harpsichordist of the New York Philharmonic, along with soprano Anya Matanovic, mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti, tenor Joshua Blue, and bass Adam Lau.
BWW Review: Stravinsky's RAKE Progresses Briefly at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - Jun 6, 2022
While I was watching the Met’s current beautiful yet somehow languid production of the Igor Stravinsky and WH Auden/Chester Kallman opera THE RAKE’S PROGRESS the other night--with only two more performances until it goes back into mothballs for probably many years--I couldn’t help wishing that the opera house was more like Broadway.
American Symphony Orchestra Announces 60th Anniversary Season Lineup
by A.A. Cristi - Nov 11, 2021
The American Symphony Orchestra celebrates its return to the stage and its 60th anniversary season in 2021-22 with four full-orchestra programs at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, and a free opening concert titled Mahler in New York at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on December 16. The opening program focuses on composers whom Mahler had championed during his years in New York.
BWW Review: The Met's Short Version of BORIS is Good-Enough for Me
by Richard Sasanow - Sep 30, 2021
The Lady or the Tiger? In this case, both are Mussorgsky’s BORIS GODUNOV—just different versions of it. Which is the preferred one? (Or, more properly, “the preferred one of several,” including one that the composer’s friend, Rimsky Korsakov, fiddled with after his death.) The Met chose Mussorgsky's original, and shorter, version for its revival of the composer's most famous opera this season.
Paola Prestini and Beth Morrison To Co-Direct 21c Liederabend, Op. Worldwide
by A.A. Cristi - Jun 16, 2021
The popular idea of a 'Liederabend' – an evening of song – goes back to Schubertiads and the flowering of German Romantic poetry and song in the 1800s. These musical salons provided the artists and ruling-class intelligentsia of their day opportunity to co-mingle ideas, music, and personal passions.