| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 8-Apr-2013 Kennedy Center: Eisenhower Theater | The devotee of music: Diana Damrau in Washington DC |
 On Monday night the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts hosted a debut recital of internationally acclaimed German soprano Diana Damrau and her concert accompanist, French harpist Xavier de Maistre. The final concert of this season’s Celebrity Series from Washington National Opera, this event had been much anticipated by DC opera fans, especially after the soprano withdrew from her WNO 2010 gig as Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet.
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| 16-Feb-2013 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Rigoletto in flashing neon lights at the Met in HD |
 Verdi’s Rigoletto is possessed of a truly tragic plot. A physically disabled jester keeps his innocent daughter locked up except for weekly church visits, a situation which she only lightly resists. Rigoletto believes a curse is to blame for his daughter being killed, although she only dies as a substitute for the man Rigoletto himself has arranged to be assassinated. It’s a tragic, sexist and uncomfortable story which belongs firmly in the 16th century.Read full review... | |
| 12-Nov-2011 National Theatre | A sobering Hoffmann |
 One of the questions this opera poses for any director is how to link the 'tales' of Hoffmann's three lost loves together and knit them satisfactorily into the Prologue and Epilogue. For this new production which travels to English National Opera next February, Richard Jones solves the puzzle by turning it into an autobiographical journey which ends with a grand meet-up of all the characters Hoffmann has encountered.
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| 9-Apr-2011 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Met’s ‘Ory’ Bubbles Like Champagne |
 When Franz Liszt conducted Le Comte Ory in Weimar, he said it “bubbled like champagne,” according to the Metropolitan Opera’s program note. It also noted that Liszt arranged for the audience to be served champagne in Act II. Met operagoers didn’t require champagne to feel bubbly, not even during intermission of the New York house’s first-ever production of Le Comte Ory when hundreds of flutes were likely consumed. Like champagne froth spilling over a too-full glass, laughter rippled out of the audience from the opening notes of the overture.
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