VIEWPOINTS – The New Victory Theater continues to be New York’s premiere performing arts presenter for young audiences

Time and time again, The New Victory Theater on 42ndStreet has proven itself to be New York’s premiere presenter of theater for children and young adults. I applaud the institution’s … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Robert Lepage’s controversial Ring Cycle at the Met concludes with a brilliantly performed SIEGFRIED & GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

Tonight marks the closing of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2018-2019 season, which concludes with the final performance of Götterdämmerung, the cataclysmic final opera of Richard Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle. Over the last … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The eclectic, arousing QUEEN OF HEARTS is quintessential Company XIV

Going to Company XIV shows is very much akin to the Cirque du Soleil experience – you’ll never forget the first time. And if Queen of Hearts happens to be … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Met’s season closes with a devastating, musically ravishing DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES

Last night, I caught my final production of the Metropolitan Opera season, Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. The work is widely considered one of the greatest operas of the second half of the … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Renée Fleming and Ben Winshaw are superb in NORMA JEANE BAKER OF TROY, Anne Carson’s genre-straddling concoction

It’s hard to assess a piece like Anne Carson’s Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, which marks the first theatrical run at the 500-seat Griffin Theater at The Shed, the brand new performing arts … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Janáček’s slight DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED is given a tastefully vague staging by Ivo van Hove

For just a handful of performances this past week as part of Brooklyn Academy of Music’s winter/spring season, Flemish opera company Muziektheater Transparant’s production of Leoš Janáček’s Diary of One Who Disappeared played the … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Reassessing Lepage’s RING CYCLE for the Met, roughly at the halfway point

Back in 2010, renowned French Canadian experimental theater director Robert Lepage embarked on staging Richard Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle – one of the towering achievements in Western Art – for the Metropolitan Opera, replacing a … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Viva Verdi!: Verdi operas dominate the Met before Wagner’s Ring Cycle settles in

Before the Metroplitan Opera embarks on staging a series of performances of Wagner’s Ring Cycle this spring, the mighty opera company has programmed a trio of Verdi operas, two of … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT– In its unfussiness, Les Arts Florissants’ RAMEAU, MAÎTRE À DANSER proves invigorating

This weekend, I caught William Christie’s exquisite 24-member baroque chamber music ensemble Les Arts Florissants perform an operatic double bill by Jean-Philippe Rameau at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. Mr. … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Met’s effervescent production of LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT returns, led by a thrilling Javier Camarena

I recently had the chance to watch the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Donizetti’s comic, light-as-air bel canto opera La Fille du Régiment. I had seen the effervescent Laurent Pelly staging – … Continue Reading →