Since 2024, when Jaap van Zweden ended his tenure as music director, the New York Philharmonic has been in a transitional period and will remain so until 2026, when Gustavo Dudamel assumes the directorship. With […]
Some works emerge after an explosion of creative intensity in a matter of weeks; others sit and brood for some time before seeing the light of day. In part, Britten’s violin concerto was a reaction […]
For his second program in his season as the Philharmonic’s Music and Artistic Director Designate, Gustavo Dudamel showcased two Symphonies separated by nearly two centuries. Beethoven’s Fifth was masterfully performed, but it was John Corigliano’s […]
André Campra was an important figure in the development of French opera between the death of Lully (1687) and Rameau’s first example, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) not least by pioneering the form of the opéra-ballet in L’Europe galante. Such works […]
Like almost all of his musical contemporaries, Salieri has remained so much in the shadow of Mozart, that it’s easy to forget how precocious he also was in composition. La locandiera (1773) is his ninth […]
To close its season this year, If Opera presented this intimate, but still dramatic, pairing of two 17th century vocal works, sacred and secular side by side. Carissimi’s Historia Jonae is one of a series […]
Nina Brazier’s production of Rigoletto for If Opera (in its delightful new home at Church Farm, Wingfield) presents it as a lively historical spectacle, set at the court of Henry VIII (neatly translating the scene […]
La cambiale di matrimonio (1810) is the work with which the 18-year-old Rossini burst upon the operatic stage (San Moisè, Venice in this case). Although it wasn’t the first opera he composed (Demetrio e Polibio […]
Staging a long, serious opera such as Zelmira (1822) based on myth and ancient history presents quite a challenge on its own terms, to keep an audience engaged with its plot twists and extensive arias. […]
Unveiled during weather inclement enough to recall Ostrovsky’s storm over the Volga, Damiano Michieletto’s COVID-era production garnered mixed reviews on its initial outing. This first revival will fare similarly. I gather there have been some […]
