The rumored surge in popular demand for yet another opera blog having failed to materialize, a few words about what can be expected here may be in order. That word “critical,” I’d say, is the key. In my dictionary, the first definition of “criticism” reads, “The act of making judgments; analysis of qualities and evaluations Continue reading…
Hoffmann’s Fantastic Tales Return
No presentation of Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann (at least none that I have seen or heard tell of) has escaped the complications attendant on the opera’s gestation and birth. Those originate in the mass of materials the composer left for his unfinished work, continue with the choices made among them by scholars, directors, and Continue reading…
Hoffmann’s Weird Tales
Fellow devotees, My article on this season’s Met revival of Les contes d’Hoffmann, originally scheduled for today, will be published on Monday, Oct. 28. I’ll be discussing the life and career of Jacques Offenbach; the music and dramaturgy of the opera itself; the choices to be made amongst the materials left at the time of the Continue reading…
“Acting.”
“Keep trying, Conrad.” The words came to me across a few empty folding chairs as we exited the St. Regis Hotel ballroom on a November day in 1978. I had just chaired a panel on the training of opera singers at a Central Opera Service conference. The panel was a prestigious one, and two of Continue reading…
“Butterfly” Revived. “Carmen,” Not.
Performances of two canonical mainstays, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Bizet’s Carmen, marked the closing weeks of the Metropolitan’s 2023-24 season. The Butterfly was a revival of the 2006-07 production that initiated Peter Gelb’s tenure as the company’s General Director. Anthony Minghella is given original “production by” billing, with sets designed by Michael Levine. Carolyn Choa is succeeded Continue reading…
La Forza del destino: Still MIA?
First, a small correction. In describing some of the highlights of the 1956-57 Metropolitan Opera season (see Callas, Part One, 3/2/24) and relying on memory, I mistakenly named the bass Gottlob Frick among the prominent German artists imported for that season’s Ring cycles. But he did not arrive until the cycles of 1961-62. Kurt Böhme was the Continue reading…