When the Metropolitan Opera rises to its own standard, no opera house in the world presents more engaging, exciting, or satisfying performances. On November 5 the new production of Alban Berg’s Lulu fulfilled every aspect of the composer’s complicated and difficult work. Anyone who comes to New York during its run should try to attend a performance. William Kentridge had a signal success a few … [Read more...]

I love Paris. I have visited this city more than thirty times over the last sixty years, and I will continue to love it even after today. I have a warning, however, that might alert future travelers to one problem that had never occurred to me. I can’t say that what happened was operatic but it felt as though it could have been. The day could not have been more beautiful. The trees are turning … [Read more...]

Over the past two weeks I had the good fortune to visit two extraordinary groups of aspiring and inspiring opera singers. I gave master classes, heard a lot of auditions, discussed how to get ahead in the business of classical music, and talked (probably too much) about my own experiences. All in all I heard more than forty singers, aged twenty-two to thirty, most of them in either master degree … [Read more...]

General Director Kasper Holten's statement that the new sound system at the Royal Opera Covent Garden will never be used to amplify singers could not be more welcome.  A great sound system in an opera house asks for trouble. Considering what I think are fine acoustics in the Royal Opera, the whole idea seemed hard to believe. Though not a problem now in London, the possibility of amplification … [Read more...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

In America today there is a strange anomaly: more and more young men and women studying to become opera singers and a decline in subscribers to opera companies. I specify subscribers even though single-ticket buyers are down, too, because opera companies live off of the committed subscriber. Though the recession is over, most company's bottom lines do not look healthy, yet the flood of singers … [Read more...]

Recently I wrote a blog complaining about the lack of focus on the singers in many reviews, and suggested that critics should spend time on whether the singer really brought over the meaning of the words and the emotions of the character. Even when the writer concentrates on the production he or she rarely mentions whether the director has connected his ideas to the opera’s music or words. Often … [Read more...]

​A few days ago I reflected on the passing of Jon Vickers, one of the great artists of the twentieth century. Opera, however, lives because of those who love it,  most of them nameless in the press. A friend told me of the passing away of one of the more remarkable opera lovers I have ever known, certainly the most dedicated Ring devotee.​ ​Verna Parino, who lived in Marin County north of San … [Read more...]