The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: The Unbiased Opinionator
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Last Saturday mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe (pictured left, photo by Kobie van Rensburg) finished singing the role Fricka in Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera. Later this month she will sing the Verdi Requiem and Elijah at the May Festival in Cincinnati. In August she will be the soloist in the Brahms Alto Rhapsody at Tanglewood.…
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The Unbiased Opinionator’s account of the last performance of Wozzeck this season at the Metropolitan Opera. * Notes * The musical and emotional journey that is Wozzeck is not an easy one. The score bears much study before an uninitiated listener can appreciate the dramatic richness and supreme formal architecture of Berg’s creation. Nonetheless, James Levine’s…
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This weekend bass-baritone Alan Held (pictured left, leftmost photo by Christian Steiner) finishes a run of Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera. He goes to Baden-Baden next for Salome, Munich in July for Rusalka, Washington DC in September for Tosca, and Bilbao in October and November for Tristan und Isolde. Next season he returns to San…
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An account of Capriccio this season at the Metropolitan Opera from the Unbiased Opinionator. * Notes * “Indian Summer” is used by music historians to describe the re-flowering of Richard Strauss’ creative powers toward the end of his life, after the catastrophe of World War II. This re-flowering, which occurred after a period of jaded stagnation,…
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An account of the final performance of Das Rheingold this season at the Metropolitan Opera from the Unbiased Opinionator. * Notes * Director Robert Lepage gave an extensive interview in New York City last fall about his conception of the Ring. He spent considerable time in Iceland, and said that no one who lived in the…
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On the evening of Sunday, March 13, LCU and UO attended the highly anticipated song recital of internationally acclaimed tenor, Jonas Kaufmann. Co-presented by Cal Performances and the San Francisco Opera, the performance took place at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. What follows is a discussion of the performance between LCU and UO. LCU: Kaufmann is…
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An account of the February 18, 2011 performance of Armida at the Metropolitan Opera from the Unbiased Opinionator. * Notes * The tale of Armida, derived from an 16th Century epic poem by Tasso, has inspired composers from Lully and Händel to Dvořák and the contemporary British composer Judith Weir. The story of the crusader Rinaldo,…
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The Metropolitan's production of John Adams' Nixon in China opened February 2. Here is the Unbiased Opinionator's account. The Opera Tattler may write about the February 12 performance. * Notes * Once derided as a "CNN Opera," an opera taking its theme from contemporary news flashes, and thus lacking in substance, "Nixon in China" has achieved a…
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German Regietheater made another inroad (after Luc Bondy's poorly-received Tosca) into the repertory of the Metropolitan Opera's with its new production of La Traviata. Here is the Unbiased Opinionator's account. * Notes * Few Met opera-goers will mourn the passing of Franco Zeffirelli's visually overloaded production of Traviata, in which it was almost impossible to…
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Metropolitan Opera‘s current production of La Fanciulla del Westmarks the 100th anniversary of the opera’s world premiere. The Unbiased Opinionator attended the performance last Tuesday. * Notes * The genesis of the La Fanciulla del Westis well known. Puccini, in New York to supervise the Met premiere of Madama Butterfly, saw David Belasco’s play The Girl…
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