In a time when opera is trying to reinvent itself and competing with all number of entertainment that has to do much less work to seem relevant, Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte at this year’s Salzburger Festspiele is a remarkably original… Continue Reading
…for Germany’s opera houses. It’s a cruel trick to imagine what I’ll be missing when the fall season opens across the country (in Berlin, the Staatsoper under den linden; in Bayreuth, the Margravial Opera House). I’m just hoping the Wortham will… Continue Reading
I’ve just left Bayreuth, Germany, where the famed annual Wagner Festival began on Monday with Parsifal. Anticipation was high, the city on alert, as the Wagner-obsessed descended. After a few walks through town and visit to the newly-renovated Richard Wagner… Continue Reading
…at Lone Star Lyric Festival, which runs through June 25. Classical music is funny about supporting new work and living composers, as the sage Alex Ross wrote about this very week regarding the Metropolitan Opera’s new appointment of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the… Continue Reading
…Actually, the camp I went to was for symphony orchestra, not band, and it’s where I first learned what it meant to play in a string quartet (a shout-out to all Sounds of Summer Music Festival alumni in the Pacific Northwest!). Read… Continue Reading
A letter from Aldous Huxley housed in the Woodson Research Center here at Rice University made me wonder what could have been (Bernstein’s response is not supplied): April 4, 1957. Letter to Leonard Bernstein. As a very busy man with… Continue Reading
In the Ensemble Theatre this morning at the world premiere of What Wings They Were: The Case of Emeline, I began to think about the advantages of a three-person opera. A historical recount of a civil case Emeline, a “free… Continue Reading
Read my preview of Houston Symphony’s weekend concert at the Houston Chronicle.
Hungarian violinist Kristóf Baráti and pianist Klára Würtz, performing Beethoven’s sonatas over two evenings, created a distinct familiarity with the music, the audience, and the art as the conclusion to Da Camera of Houston’s Menil Collection season. Following a night… Continue Reading
Read my review of Houston Grand Opera’s Siegfried at Bachtrack .