#COC1920

Editorial

2019/20 is a season of revivals, perhaps disappointingly so for some of the COC's longtime audience members who won't get treated to much they haven't seen before.

Stemme's Elektra visible in every wild look and lurching step

Review

Every facet of this production is thoughtful and dramatic, so much so that even the actors aren't immune from its terrors. It was announced before curtain that Stemme sustained a knee injury during a rehearsal (one look at the steeply raked set and you'll wonder the whole cast isn't on crutches!).

All too rare: Hannigan takes the podium with the Cleveland Orchestra

Review

Hannigan's well received turn at the podium, met by an immediate and unanimous standing ovation, should serve to demonstrate to the Cleveland Orchestra, and to classical music institutions across the continent and around the globe, that making an effort to include and elevate marginalized perspectives holds significance well beyond meeting a quota or "catching up with the times."

La Nilsson: celebrating Birgit Nilsson at 100

Op-Ed

The box seems to generate its own energy. Covered in sophisticated hues of copper and gray with a resplendent image of Birgit Nilsson as Brünnhilde, who had surely passed through hair and make-up before leaving Valhalla, it is of monolithic proportions.

Bucking trends: Hook Up

Review

It was at times Sondheim, at times Schwartz, at times Bernstein, but the overarching feeling (to me) was akin to Adam Guettel's masterpiece A Light in the Piazza.

Expressionist nuance: Elektra at the COC

Review

What can one possibly say about Christine Goerke in this role and still do justice to the kind of singing we experienced on Saturday night? Her vocal range is not of this dimension and her finesse to Strauss' bombastic score is something to be witnessed in person.

So true it hurts: Hook Up

Review

The party scene put a pit in my stomach, as did everything that came after. The confusion, the horrid feeling of not knowing - but kind of knowing - what happened during a blackout, the inadequate explanations to friends and boyfriends, it was all too true.

TSO's 2019/20 a season of (mostly) classics

Editorial

"There's nothing I like better than planning programmes," says Davis, of his enthusiastic stepping in as the TSO's Interim Artistic Director. But, eager to pass the torch officially to Gimeno, "the next season will be Gustavo's."

Talking with singers: Stephen Powell

Interview

I wanted to be Billy Joel when I was growing up because he was a classically trained pianist too. He wrote his own music, sang his own stuff, arranged his own music, his songs, and told a story.

A real woman shines through reductive Traviata in Palm Beach

Review

Like the jewels she wore (and there were many), soprano Kristina Mkhitaryan sparkled in the starring role, singing with agility, clarity, and show-stopping emotional depth. Her soft, liquid entrances in "Addio, del passato" melded impeccably with the plaintive oboe solo.