opera
Thaïs: Religion versus sexuality on an epic scale
May 30, 2014Jules Massenet's Thaïs is a tale of religion and sexual repression, with baritone Plácido Domingo as Athanaël, a meddler of epic proportions, masquerading as a monk to hide his inner psychological conflicts.
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“The Death of Klinghoffer”: controversial history in opera
April 4, 2014Composer John Adams and librettist Alice Goodman specialize in expressing 20th century historical events in opera The rarely staged Death is the most controversial, dogged by criticism and cancellations.
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“Billy Budd”: sex, revolution and sea in jaw-dropping opera
March 4, 2014In 1888 Herman Melville began the philosophical novella Billy Budd. Perhaps one could say that composer Benjamin Britten and his librettists E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier "completed" it with their adaptation.
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Go see Duke Ellington’s sweet, tangy “Queenie Pie”
February 14, 2014Ellington was one of the most versatile figures in music of the 20th century, but most people do not know that from the 1930s on, Ellington worked intermittently, all the way up to his death in...
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In Verdi’s “Falstaff,” all the world’s a jest
November 18, 2013What better way to celebrate Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi's bicentennial than with a production of Falstaff?
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