Entre le coucher de soleil et le clair de lune, les feux d’artifice nous appellent encore. There is something tragic about the decline of a great operatic voice. It’s a tragedy that encompasses all the smaller tragedies of decline – including our own individually...
Coming Down From Machu Picchu – or – the Afterglow
So I was on the phone with my pal Mary the other day and we were talking about how, between our respective work deadlines and obligations, and taking care of our quadruped loved ones, we essentially never went out anymore. “I mean it’s not as if we’ll ever catch up on...
Strangers On A Train – The Abduction From the Seraglio
The Los Angeles Opera’s co-production of Mozart’s The Abduction From the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), which closed February 19th, updated the action of this singspiel from its original mid- to late-18th century Ottoman Turkish setting, when the Ottoman...
Cry the Occupied Country – Figaro’s Dance and A Countess’s Lament
Do you ever wonder what happened to the Occupy moment? We can’t really call it a movement because it had no coherent program, plan or organization, no well defined or articulated policy (or revolutionary) objectives; and its only concrete target was a somewhat...
Figaro “Unbound”—but undocumented: ¡Figaro! (90210)
It’s been said that The Marriage of Figaro (or, more precisely, The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro, as it was originally titled) was one of the first nails in the coffin of the ancien régime. Its author, the playwright, musician, watch-maker (and inventor),...
Hold Me! – Barrie Kosky’s “Boy Girl, Boy Girl” spin on Dido and Aeneas and Bluebeard’s Castle
For all the talk about its fragility (at least in economic terms), opera remains a remarkably durable art form. Great music wedded to a strong dramatic core can never be easily dismissed. Add some good orchestration and the human voice in its full dynamic range,...