| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 8-Dec-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Álvarez and Hvorostovsky outstanding in the Met's Un ballo in maschera |
 Verdi experts regularly name Un ballo in maschera to be one of his finest works. In spite of this, it’s never reached the heights of popularity of La Traviata or Rigoletto, so a new production by an acclaimed director for a major opera house is a notable event. We watched David Alden’s New York Ballo from the comfort of a London cinema under the Met’s Live in HD series.
Read full review... | |
| 5-Sep-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 72: Nixon in China at the Albert Hall |
 Every opera should have at least one of those “wow” moments that lift you out of your seat and have you singing them in your head on the way home. In the case of John Adams' Nixon in China, it comes at the end of Act II, when Chiang Ch'ing struts onto the stage and announces that “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” in a blistering aria filled with aerobatic climbs and swoops and rather Wagnerian major to minor shifts. Kathleen Kim, who sang the role at the Met last year, turned in exactly the sort of show-stopping performance that the number demanded.
Read full review... | |
| 10-May-2011 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Ariadne auf Naxos |
| The Strauss opera Ariadne auf Naxos was inspired by the Moliere play The
Middle-Class Gentleman. The richest man in Vienna has arranged for two
entertainments--one a serious opera composed by a young man just for the
occasion, and the other an Italian comedy group. He decides at the last minute
to combine the two into one entertainment. If he were a proper gentleman, he
would know better.
Musically it has the same feeling of being a concoction, a shifting landscape.
In Act I all the characters appear as themselves, and sing in a very natural Read full review... | |
| 7-May-2011 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | Wacky Ariadne Marvels But Isn't Marvelous |
 Tumblers and fire jugglers in rainbow colors. Singing nymphs soaring for stories into the air. Arias deeply dramatic and broadly comic. The Metropolitan Opera’s interpretation of Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss is a magical mashup of modern and classic, seria and buffa, technique and technology that pleases but falls short of terrific for this reviewer.
Read full review... | |
