Uncluttered magic in Carsen's Midsummer

Review

For those looking to escape into a Shakespearean fantasy world filled with fairies, comical misunderstandings, and top-notch singing, this production of Midsummer is not to be missed.

Talking with singers: Nina Stemme

Interview

She cautions that even in a prestigious YAP or ensemble studio, the opera directors are juggling many priorities and they simply want "to get the most out of your voice right now."

Talking with singers: Pumeza Matshikiza

Interview

When the legendary Jessye Norman receives the prestigious Glenn Gould Prize - Canada's most significant award for artistic achievement - soprano Pumeza Matshikiza will be among the impressive line-up of singers set to pay homage.

Majeski makes sensitive, subtle ROH debut in Kát'a Kabanova

Review

It is a piece that is so clearly a microcosm of a very specific place and time. Director Richard Jones has chosen to set it in the mid-60s in a repressive, religious Russian community where a life of domesticity, is a woman's only option.

Challenging opera's "male swagger" in (La) Voix humaine

Interview

"In the operatic canon, there's a whole lot of male swagger, seduction, anger, and violence but a notable lack of vulnerability. Dramatically, I'm interested in shame and vulnerability, particularly in the lives of men."

#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.