Review: Splendid Singing, Erratic Direction Mark the Met's New DON GIOVANNI from Van Hove
While I’ve always been bothered by the cruelties and misogyny of the main character, Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI has (musically) been my favorite of the composer’s operas, though either casting or design has been a regular issue in bringing off the work at its best. Happily, the Met’s new production by Belgian provocateur Ivo van Hove is a success for me, with a cast filled with wonderful singers--and the Met orchestra and chorus sounding great under debutante Nathalie Stutzmann.
Review Roundup: Ivo van Hove's DON GIOVANNI Opens at the Metropolitan Opera
Ivo van Hove, the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway’s A View from the Bridge, is making a major Met debut with Mozart’s Don Giovanni (May 5–June 2), re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the work’s dark corners. Read what the critics have to say!
BWW Review: Soprano Nadine Sierra Makes a Splash " and a Splat " in Bloody New Simon Stone LUCIA at the Met
Well, no one can say that the Met doesn’t have guts. After the tepid response that subscribers gave its Las Vegas version of Verdi’s RIGOLETTO by Michael Mayer, no one would have suspected that they’d come up with a version of Donizetti’s LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR that made anything else it’s produced look tame. And while the new LUCIA isn’t something that will send every Met attendee into quivers of excitement--I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many pros and cons discussed at an intermission before--it also won’t send them to sleep either.
Center For Contemporary Opera Presents An Opera In Development
The Center for Contemporary Opera presentsAn Opera in Development: Joel Feigin's Outcast at the GateFriday, June 14, 2019, 7:30pm at Thalia Theatre at Symphony SpaceSara Jobin, Conducts; Sara Erde, DirectsOutcast at the Gate, with music and libretto by Joel Feigin, will be presented by the Center for Contemporary Opera as part of CCO's opera in development series on Friday, June 14 at 7:30pm at the Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space.