The inconceivable advocacy of a large percentage of Americans for Donald Trump to be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2016 began to make a little more sense upon reading the New York Times critic's ode to political correctness in his September 25th review of the Metropolitan Opera's seasonal premiere of Puccini's Turandot. The writer gave over much of his concluding paragraphs to yet … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2015
HOW NOT TO SAVE MONEY
The other day one of the excellent character artists in opera wrote me that he was going into another business: he likes to perform in the United States, but many companies, both large and small, have stopped engaging mature performers and were using young artists instead. This could be much more a disaster to opera than it might seem. Great opera is not cheap, and since the birth of opera in … [Read more...]
IN DEFENSE OF THE BOX OFFICE
I agree completely with David Gockley's remarks, as reported in Slipped Disc on September 1, about both the knee-jerk reaction of some critics (not just East Coast critics either) and the weakness of the opera, Written on Skin. I attended a performance of the work in Paris and was absolutely dumbfounded at the positive reaction to it. I do not categorically dislike opera influenced by this kind of … [Read more...]