Review

Mostly Mozart takes on Rossini’s Stabat Mater

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disclaimer: ad for a different concert.

I promise I won’t start this Mostly Mozart review with a note that their recently-vaunted innovation is, in most concerts, invisible. This hook has proven awfully popular.

This was a concert of Rossini and Beethoven. (This year’s theme: Mostly Mozart and Beethoven. It’s… sorry, almost got pulled by The Hook again.) There was a preconcert concert by the Dover String Quartet, which featured the daring choice of Beethoven’s Op. 59/2. Further innovation!

Sorry, Mostly Mozart Festival. You just make it so easy. And the Dover Quartet was excellent, with a nice lightness and dynamic range. The first violinist’s super-bright E string seemed distractingly unblended at times.

Anyway, the main concert. It was conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, who seems to be Italy’s cosmic conducting recompense for Daniele Gatti. Together they average out into normal tempos–Gatti is glacial, Noseda just drank a whole case of Red Bull. But Noseda got considerably more out of the orchestra than Louis Langrée did at the opening concert. The orchestra’s sound still lacks body, but in the opening Beethoven Symphony No. 2 (hey, at least it was slightly obscure Beethoven!) they played with much greater accentuation and color. The Larghetto was more like an Andante, and the winds made some welcome contributions. The final two movements were also breathless, occasionally a little scrappy but excitingly so.

The main body of the program was Rossini’s Stabat Mater. It’s a grand piece of music, and not one set to a text you’d expect to be so red-blooded, but that’s the most obvious thing to say about it and I don’t really have any wisdom to impart on this matter. Noseda didn’t seem to feel any need to make it sound like Palestrina, it was big and loud and fast and not very subtle but on the whole quite good. The chorus was the Concert Chorale of New York and they sounded fantastic, with better blending and ensemble than the orchestra by a long shot.

The soloists were a good group. Soprano Maria Agresta has a glamorous sound with a fast vibrato, consistent and very Italian with strong high notes. (This reminds me how infrequently we actually hear Italian sopranos today.) But she lacks a degree of refinement, tending to sing everything forte with minimal phrasing. The Inflammatus is pretty loud, and the high notes made it exciting, but I could have used something more nuanced at times. Also in the brutal force category, Gregory Kunde belted out the Cujus animam and landed square on the high note with great strength. But his tone is leathery and unpleasant.

The lower voices were more satisfying. I may have gone to this concert mostly to hear mezzo Daniela Barcellona, after liking her so much in La donna del lago at the ROH. Actually, I totally did. And she was great, with a dark, plangent sound, of course less fiery than she had been in the other Rossini but singing with great expressive intensity. Bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen sounded excellent in the Pro peccatis and the recit, booming out with impressive power. I wish he got better casting at the Met.

So on the whole a satisfying concert, though I wish Noseda had stopped to smell the flowers occasionally.

Program Notes Smackdown
I haven’t done one of these for a while but there are a few bits of Andrew Shenton’s notes with which I have to take issue. On the Rossini:

“It is too tempting to be engaged with the drama of the music and the virtuosity of the singing and playing rather than the meaning of the text.”

Yes, the perceived disparity between text and expression is an interesting, if obvious crux. Why don’t you discuss it instead of scolding your audience for doing it wrong? (Is it just me or does this sound like a Calvinist sort of complaint? This music is Catholic!)

On the Beethoven, he quotes Maynard Solomon calling the symphony “both retrospective and progressive.” Then he says how:

“Its retrospective elements are the orchestral form… four movements with a slow introduction… its prospective features begin with the arresting introduction, marked Adagio.”

Wait, what?

Also, this program is getting out of control with regard to sections. There’s a note on the preconcert concert, a welcome to the festival from the artistic director, a program note on the whole festival, a one-page “program summary” note and then the proper program notes. If you got that far. This has been another episode of Program Notes Smackdown.

 Mostly Mozart Festival, 8/14/2013, Avery Fisher Hall. Gianandrea Noseda, conductor, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra with the Concert Chorale of New York (directed by James Bagwell).

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Review

Figaro at the Mostly Mozart Festival

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I went to see Le Nozze di Figaro at the Mostly Mozart Festival and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:

In his program note, conductor-director Iván Fischer describes his Mostly Mozart Festival production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro
as a staged concert. His agenda sounds serious: “This is my attempt to
bring theater and music closer to each other, to create a new natural
harmony.” He asks for a new era in opera production, seeking “organic
unity” between music and theater. Admirable intentions, but this has
already been the goal of opera since roughly 1600. His production
doesn’t reinvent the wheel, its virtues are familiar. But a detailed,
engagingly performed, and musically excellent Figaro is never unwelcome.

You can read the whole thing here. The photo gives you a good idea of the setup. That’s Fischer on the right.

This was worlds better than my other two most recent Figaros—this Met one and another one I didn’t write about because I left at intermission. (Apparently in that latter production I missed Bartolo singing “My Way” in Act 3. Oh, Germany.) The Mostly Mozart effort does suffer from not being a full production: the costume concept is decent but applied somewhat haphazardly, and a set would really help clarify the action. But there’s a lot to enjoy, particularly in the operatic desert of summer.

This was, unbelievably, the Mostly Mozart Festival’s first ever performance of Figaro. I know their focus is usually symphonic and choral works, but it still is surprising.

Photo copyright Gordon Eszter (or possibly, in English, Eszter Gordon?).

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Review

Metropoitan Opera, 2013-2014

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Onegin is pictured in Act 3 while Tatiana is in Act 1.

Single tickets for the Met’s 2013-14 season go on sale on August 11 (and sooner for donors), so I thought it was time to write my annual preview. It’s a promising schedule, with a good amount that I noted down as must-sees right away. You can admire the online brochure here. Here are my remarks.

It’s also a season that is seemingly split between stuff for the novice and connoisseur, with an unusual assortment of rarities like the The Nose, Prince Igor, and Arabella balanced out by a dozen performances each of Tosca, Butterfly, and Bohème.  To some extent it’s always like this, but it’s particularly pronounced this year. What gets pushed out seems to be the middle–there is no Wagner at all, and the only Mozart is Così and the kid-targeted abridged Flute. And while I’m not whining about the lack of early Verdi myself (it’s not my favorite), the Met usually features at least one pre-Rigoletto work.

I also noticed that with the exception of Prince Igor all the productions have either already been produced by a London house or are directed by someone British. I realize that Britain probably has the operatic culture most similar to the US’s, but this seems excessively narrow in focus. 

Nonetheless there is much to look forward to: the Met debut of Dmitri Tcherniakov, James Levine’s return, and 14 performances of La Bohème. OK, maybe not so much on that last one.

This year I’ll be writing a second preview covering groups such as the Gotham Chamber Opera, New York City Opera, and visiting groups such as Les Arts Florissants. Stay tuned.

You can find specific dates and details for each production on this page.

New Productions
Chaikovsky, Eugene Onegin (premiere September 23): This Deborah Warner production received mixed (at best) reviews at the English National Opera, and there has been general consternation that it is replacing the popular current Robert Carsen production at the Met. I can see the point: the Carsen has had a good enough run, but the Warner really doesn’t sound exciting. But it stars Netrebko (her third Met opening night in a row–I love ya, Trebs, but really?), so it had to be new, it seems. Mariusz Kwiecien sings Onegin and Piotr Beczala sings Lensky. Note that the second cast features the fabulous Onegin of Peter Mattei, but also Marina Poplovskaya as Tatiana and Rolando Villazon as Lensky, so it may be a matter of taste.

Two out of two Met Onegin sets agree: Onegin is about dead trees

Nico Muhly, Two Boys (October and November): Our new production theme seems to be things borrowed from the English National Opera. This one also received mixed reviews, and since I wasn’t nuts about Muhly’s Dark Sisters, I am somewhat ambivalent. But it’s great that the Met is producing new opera at all, I suppose. The internet theme means, as some slogan will surely remind us, that opera can be Contemporary! I never would have guessed. Cast includes Alice Coote, Paul Appleby, Jennifer Zetlan, and Caitlin Lynch (the latter two were in Dark Sisters).

Verdi, Falstaff (December and January): Oops, this one isn’t from the ENO, it’s from Covent Garden. Since we’re losing one Carsen production in Onegin, it’s nice we’re at least gaining another in this Falstaff, particularly because it sounds fairly good. Ambrogio Maestri, last year’s Dulcamara, sings Falstaff, Angela Meade is Alice Ford, and Lisette Oropesa should be beautiful as Nannetta. No word on whether Rupert the Horse is coming over from London.

Falstaff

J. Strauss II, Die Fledermaus (December, January, February): This one is an original, but it’s directed by British polymath Jeremy Sams, who is doing a new translation. I remind you that he brought us Enchanted Island. Douglas Carter Beane is doing the dialogue. Susanna Philips and Christopher Maltman sing the Eisensteins.

Borodin, Prince Igor (February and March). The only new production this season that neither comes from London nor is directed by a British person. The director is Dmitri Tcherniakov, who is one of the top Regie suspects in Europe and has had great success with Russian works like Ruslan and Lydmila, Khovanshchina, and, er, Onegin, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with for this one. The cast is also very Slavic, and includes Ildar Abdrazakov and Anita Rachvelishvili.

Massenet, Werther (February and March). This mopey opera exists primarily as a tenor vehicle, in this case the tenor is Jonas Kaufmann. The production is by (British) Richard Eyre, who did the Met’s Carmen that everyone always forgets is actually only a few years old. Elina Garanca brings her distant charms to the repressed Charlotte. I’ve seen Garanca and Kaufmann independently in this opera in Vienna, and they both managed to make me not dislike Massenet, which is something. Also, Lisette Oropesa!

Repertoire
Mozart, Così fan tutte (September and April): James Levine’s big comeback! Isabel Leonard and Matthew Polenzani will be elegant, and last year’s best surprise, Guanqun Yu, returns to sing one performance of Fiordiligi. And Danielle De Niese is Despina, so, er.

Shostakovich, The Nose (September and October): This is a fantastic production of a very fun opera. Go see it, particularly if you missed it the first time around. Here’s what I wrote about its premiere.

Bellini, Norma (October): Has Anyone Except Callas Sung Norma Well Since 1650? I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to talk about that for the month before and after this one! It features a Sondra Radvonovsky/Kate Aldrich option and an Angela Meade/Jamie “Awesome” Barton option. Aleksandrs Atonenko sings Pollione, which, well, that’s gonna be loud.

Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (October): An opera I have never seen! (*Looks slightly embarrassed.*) I better go see it. Cast includes Kathleen Kim, Erin Wall, and Iestyn Davies, conducted by James Conlon.

Puccini, Tosca (October, November, December). This production, I can’t even. Tosce include Racette, Radvanovsky, and Matos; Marii Alagna, Giordani, and one Ricardo Tamura.

Strauss, Die Frau ohne Schatten (November). Now we’re talking! This Herbert Wernicke production is said to be fantastic, this is its first revival since its premiere a decade ago, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it. Vladimir Jurowski conducts and the cast includes Anne Schwanewilms (who sang it in Salzburg), Christine Goerke, Torsten Kerl, and Johan Reuter.

Rigoletto

Verdi, Rigoletto (November). We all remember this one from last season. (If you don’t, here.) This year we get Aleksandra Kurzak as Gilda, who should be excellent, Hvorostovsky as the hunchback (which judging by past results will not be good), and Polenzani as the Duca. Reputedly fantastic conductor Pablo Heras-Casado debuts.

Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (Novemeber and December). Martina Serafin should bring a real Viennese touch to the Marschallin, and Garanca’s Octavian is something to look forward to–while perhaps not the perfect personality match of Charlotte, she should certainly sound great. Unfortunately Mojca Erdmann will be singing Sophie. The second cast includes Serafin with Daniela Sindram as Octavian and Erin Morley as Sophie. Edward Gardner conducts, which, ?

Mozart, The Magic Flute (December and January): This is the English-language abridged version. Cast includes Eric Owens and Nathan Gunn.

Donizetti, L’Elisir d’amore (January): Same as last year, same Trebs. This time with Ramon Vargas, whose Nemorino is quite sweet.

Puccini, La Bohème (January, March, April): It wouldn’t be the Met without 14, count ‘em, 14 performances of Zeffirelli’s ode to the opulence of starving and freezing in a Parisian garret. 14 nights when I will plan to be somewhere else. Rotating cast includes Calleja and Grigolo as Rodolfo.

Puccini, Madama Butterfly (January, February, April, May). How does one pay for one’s Prince Igors, Noses, and Shadowless Ladies? With 14 Bohèmes and 14 Butterflies. Kristine Opolais alert in the second cast. No fewer than four Pinkertons in this one.

Dvorak, Rusalka (January, February). We got rid of the dusty greenery of Schenk’s Ring, but we still have the dusty greenery of Schenk’s Rusalka. Like the last revival, this one has Fleming and Zajick, unlike the last one it also has Beczala and, as the Foreign Princess, Emily Magee.

The aria “Are you having fun yet”
(sung to “Myself I shall adore”)

The Enchanted Island (February and March): Did we have to revive this? Did we really have to?

Berg, Wozzeck (March): Levine conducts again, in what has to be the single most often performed “rarity” around. (This will be its third outing in New York in two seasons, which is more than most standard rep.) Hampson sings Wozzeck, which will be something.

Bellini, La Sonnambula (March): This is a Mary Zimmerman production that landed in 2009 with a metatheatrical thump, and I don’t think many expected it to be revived. Anyway, Diana Damrau is singing it this time.

Giordano, Andrea Chénier (March and April): Libertà, egalité, and cheese! Or something like that. Álvarez, Racette, Lucic.

Strauss, Arabella (April): A true rarity in the US, this is another musty Schenk production but it will be nice to see this opera. This was reportedly planned for our favorite cancellation-prone German soprano, and has very strong casting in, well, everything except the title role. While we’re getting Malin Byström as Arabella, the great Genia Kühmeier sings Zdenka, and Michael Volle should be an unusually good Mandryka.

Bellini, I Puritani (April, May): When last seen with Trebs, this Thanksgiving pilgram-like production looks like the unironic version of the last scene of Zimmerman’s Sonnambula. But Olga Peretyatko, singing Elvira, is reportedly good.

Rossini, La Cenerentola (April, May): DiDonato/Flórez vehicle. It’ll be LIKABLE! It’ll remind you frequently how likable it is!

Mystery Event
Vittorio Grigolo in recital (March 9): I thought the Kaufmann recital of a few years ago showed us that this (a recital in the Met) is a difficult thing to pull off even if you’re an experienced recitalist with a large voice. Grigolo is neither experienced nor does he have a big voice. Why is this happening?

Start marking your calendars, folks. (Not for the Grigolo recital. Well, I guess, if you want. I shouldn’t judge. But….)

Photo credits:
Onegin: ENO
Falstaff: Catherine Ashmore/ROH
Rigoletto, Nose, Island: Met

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Review

Mostly Mozzzzzzzart

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The Mostly Mozart Festival! More like Mostly Doze-art, amirite? Sorry, that’s cruel, but neither was I convinced by this Times piece about how Lincoln Center’s July/August celebration of the familiar is innovative now because they have a small new music series in a tiny theater. It’s easy enough to get a hundred or so people to come over from Roulette, call me when they put their money where their mouth is, that is, change the central, large-scale program. Because the main theater is again hosting programs of mostly Mozart, along with a celebration of a composer who is, compared to Mozart, unusual and underrated. You know. Beethoven.

Also, call me when I can get a ticket to the David Lang piece in the tiny theater. Because that thing is seriously sold out. So I ended up in Avery Fisher Hall for the opening program of Mozart. And Beethoven. This concert was seriously not sold out. Tons of empty seats. Draw your own conclusions.

On the other hand, if this is an improvement, how somnolent did it used to be? Geez. Because, to be honest, this concert was mediocre. (When your programming is this bland, so-so performances don’t even have the virtue of novelty.)

The Festival Orchestra, as conducted by Louis Langrée has a decent, warm sound and plays with energy. But in this concert they skated over the surface of the textures. The strings seem unable to produce a crisp, sharp attack, and there were places, particularly in the opening Coriolan Overture, where a good deal more weight and darkness would have helped. Perhaps this is in part the Avery Fisher acoustic, but it all sounded rather soft focus. This proved particularly fatal in the many repeated sequences found in Beethoven’s development sections. There was no tension or shift of dynamics, it was like jogging on a treadmill. You’re working away, but you aren’t going anywhere.

The Mozart portion of the concert was supplied by Alice Coote, who sang “Ch’io mi scordi di te” and “Parto, parto.” She was the best thing about spring’s Giulio Cesare at the Met, but her full, rather thick mezzo seemed a little out of place here. While the orchestra was breezy, Coote is unwaveringly intense, which can be disconcerting when dealing with two brief concert arias rather than a whole opera. To my taste, she made a few too many sacrifices of elegance and clarity of line for the sake of dramatic emphasis. While exclamations like “Stelle barbare” and “Perché!!!” had focus, a little more bravura and flair would have been welcome.

The rest of the program was Beethoven. I’m not a good judge of pianists, so I’m not going to say a lot about Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s performance of the Piano Concerto No. 4 and the piano part in “Ch’io mi scordi,” but I wasn’t all that impressed. He’s got a crisp sound that matches the orchestra, but his middle-range playing rarely projected to my rear orchestra seat, with muddy passagework in all except the highest registers. The phrasing in the second movement was more graceful. The program closed with the audience-pleasing Symphony No. 7, which seems to be on every program ever. This account was fine but not anything special–fleet and light, but lacking in rhythmic Schwung.

Some of the rest of the festival looks more promising: I hope to catch the Rossini Stabat Mater with Noseda and the awesome Daniela Barcellona, and the highlight will surely be the Figaro with the fab Budapest Festival Orchestra and a promising cast. Let’s hope it improves.

Meanwhile, I’ve come up with some ideas for improvements on Mostly Mozart:
Almost Mozart: music from the late 18th century by everyone except Mozart
You Think You Know Mozart?: music Mozart wrote before the age of 13. don’t make this annual.
Mostly Nope-Zart: concerts that are 90% very loud and non-gentle music
On Twitter, LJC suggests the additions of Staggeringly Stamitz and Drastically Dittersdorf. Sure sell-outs! Add your own in the comments if you like.

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Review

Matsukaze at the Lincoln Center Festival

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Remember me? I went to see Toshio Hosokawa’s Matsukaze at the Lincoln Center Festival and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

Toshio Hosokawa’s opera Matsukaze
is in many ways a model of modern cross-cultural creation. Premièred in
Brussels in 2011, it sets a story from the traditional Japanese Noh
theater in a more or less Western operatic framework. And the text is in
German. But unlike some other recent efforts to merge Asian and
European traditions (such as Tan Dun’s The First Emperor), it
is a fully-formed and rewarding work of art rather than a self-conscious
experiment. Despite a pedestrian production, Lincoln Center Festival’s
presentation is a valuable opportunity to hear Hosokawa’s impressive
score.


You can read the whole thing here. I have been absent recently due to a) too much work and b) a certain absence of material. I have a few plans for August but things will be quiet for a while. I am sorry to have missed Michaels Reise um die Erde, also at the LCF, but it’s too bad they scheduled two of their most interesting events for the same three nights. I went to Matsukaze on the first of the three, and the other two I spent at a wedding.

One thing I didn’t mention was the casting of two Asian (Korean) singers in the roles of the sisters. Maybe this wasn’t intentional, there are lots of fine Asian and Asian-descent singers out there, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it. If it was intentional, it seems to me to be unnecessary and possibly problematic. If it wasn’t, well, I’m glad I didn’t mention it.

Also, I liked Paul Griffiths’s program notes. I wish certain other NYC opera groups would follow suit.

See you from the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Figaro, if not sooner.

Photo copyright Olivier Roset.

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Review

Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero at the NY Phil

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I went to hear Il prigioniero with Gerald Finley and Patricia Racette as well as some Prokofiev with violinist Lisa Batiashvili at the New York Philharmonic and wrote about it for Bachtrack.

 Alan Gilbert’s last few seasons at the New York Philharmonic have featured an opera in June. While previous efforts have featured elaborate staging, this year’s installment, Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero, was performed in concert. For this particular work, which was written for radio broadcast, this seems only appropriate.

You can read the rest here. This was a performance I felt that I should have liked more than I actually did. Perhaps it takes a little more experience to get into Dallapiccola’s world, which I certainly don’t have much experience with. It’s a striking work with some vivid moments but somehow never stopped feeling externalized.

But I am happy the Philharmonic performed it–remember how Maazel was doing concert performances of Tosca a few years ago? I’m not often thrilled by Gilbert’s conducting, but his programming is fascinating (though too many guest conductors are leading only golden oldies). Keep it up.

photo copyright Chris Lee

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Favorite Posts, Review

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, or, Men Who Hate Women

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Martern aller Arten

I had a few extra days in Europe, so I decided to hop over to Berlin for Calixto Bieito’s production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which I’ve wanted to see for ages. If your reaction to this decision is not along the lines of “well, of course,” then continue reading with some caution.

For staging fundamentalists, this production and its supposed desecration of Mozartian purity have become a synecdoche for all of Regietheater. This is basically dumb: you can’t reduce so much diverse work by so many people to one production, and while I haven’t actually seen Calixto Bieito’s do-do list I doubt that “despoil our sacred cultural heritage” is the first thing on it. So I want to talk about this production, not its reputation. But before seeing it I assumed that none of its critics had actually seen the thing, since their litanies of complaints have the snapshot quality of description obtained through photos and others’ reviews rather than seeing an actual performance. But after seeing it myself, I’m not sure this is necessarily correct.

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Review

Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper

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I went to see Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper Berlin as directed by Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

Die Zauberflöte is a work whose
outward simplicity masks internal complexity and even contradictions.
Mozart’s music is childishly tuneful and yet reaches for the classically
sublime; Emmanuel Schikaneder’s libretto alternates a magical quest
story out of a German storybook with Masonic claptrap and secondhand
Voltaire. For a children’s opera, its message occasionally goes off the
rails; for Enlightenment philosophy it seems silly (and its treatment of
race and gender hardly progressive). Contemporary stage directors
approaching this piece have many options, as well as challenges.


You can read the whole thing here. It’s a delightful production, colorful enough for kids and sophisticated enough for adults. This is the second Weimar cinema-inspired production I’ve seen, the first being the more chronologically appropriate Cardillac at the Wiener Staatsoper. This Zauberflöte was less literal and far prettier.

I don’t know how the video and musical sides were coordinated or cued. The situation varies here–the Met made a big deal about how the videos of their Damnation de Faust responded to the music rather than the other way around, while I saw a L’enfant et les sortilèges in Munich with some severe coordination problems. In Berlin, everything seemed to function smoothly, but I don’t know to what extent the timing of the video was fixed and to what extent it was being triggered on the spot. It’s amazing to think of how far this technology has advanced in just a few years.

I’ve heard better singing at the Komische Oper, but everyone was perfectly competent. Highly recommended if you’re in Berlin.

More photos below.

All photos copyright Iko Fresse / drama-berlin.de

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Review

Farcical aquatic ceremonies: La donna del lago at the ROH

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According to the Royal Opera House’s new production of Rossini’s La donna del lago, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. But while the production’s vague juxtaposition of barbaric highlanders and European-style courtiers doesn’t really work, there’s a lot of exciting singing, Joyce DiDonato as the titular aquatic lass, and Juan Diego Florez in a kilt.
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Review

La Périchole closes the New York City Opera’s season

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I went to see La Périchole at the New York City Opera and I wrote about it for Bachtrack:

Henri Bergson famously defined comedy as
“something mechanical encrusted on the living”. One suspects that
Jacques Offenbach would have been a fan of this definition, and that
Christopher Alden most certainly is. Alden’s new production of La Périchole,
which closes the New York City Opera’s season, is strange, abrasive,
and also extremely funny, careening past the everyday to end up
somewhere deeply bizarre.

You can read the whole thing here. I highly recommend this show! It is a great piece in a top-notch and hilarious Alden production, and that’s a winning combination (check out the video below). It’s actually been quite a fortnight for opera in New York, between Giulio Cesare, Mosè in Egitto, best of all David et Jonathas at BAM, and finally after all those Egyptians and Romans, then Israelites and Egyptians, and then Israelites and Philistines, finally ending with this insanely delightful farce that just has Peruvians.

It’s also basically the end for me of this season’s operatic adventures in NYC, though the Phil’s Dallapiccola in June will provide a coda. I recommend y’all go see Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Met, but there are only three performances and unfortunately none of them fit into my schedule. As you may remember, I have mixed feelings about this piece and have seen it twice recently, once in Robert Carsen’s excellent traditional staging and once in Calixto Bieito’s excellent non-traditional staging, so I don’t regret it too much. It will spare you my habit of nun puns (sorry).

Anyway, I have some other stuff elsewhere coming up, so I’ll see you soon-ish in any case.


 
Photo copyright Carol Rosegg

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