Der Ring des Polykrates
A link to my recent review for “OperaWire” of Numi Opera’s “Der Ring des Polykrates”, written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold before he went to Hollywood and scored Errol Flynn movies:
Category: Opera articles
The Central Park Five
My “OperaWire” review of Anthony Davis and Richard Wesley’s “The Central Park Five”, produced by Long Beach Opera:
“[T]o have a piece of my true self onstage”
Some thoughts for “The Podium” on equity and diversity in current US opera and orchestral music:
Pacific Opera Project’s “Madam Butterfly” in Japanese
Some thoughts for “OperaWire” on Pacific Opera Project’s “Madam Butterfly”, sung in the languages the characters would have spoken:
Stravinsky’s “Orpheus” and “Persephone”
Some thoughts for OperaWire on two Stravinsky theater pieces:
The Clemency of Titus
My review for “Opera Wire” of Los Angeles Opera’s “Clemency of Titus” –
Some thoughts on The Magic Flute
My review of Pacific Opera Project’s “Magic Flute” for “OperaWire” [photo: Martha Benedict] – Pacific Opera Project 2018-19 Review: The Magic Flute
What’s to love?’- Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and the latent lyricism of the Second Viennese School
‘ Even now, so many decades after the composers of the Second Viennese School were active, the music of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and his pupils Alban Berg (1885-1935), the creator of Wozzeck, and Anton von Webern (1883-1945) is difficult for many audiences to understand and not strikingly popular. The Twelve-Tone Technique which Schoenberg invented in […]
Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel”
When it seemed that Wagner’s music-dramas were un-toppable, his one-time assistant Engelbert Humperdinck showed that the way forward lay in going back to folk-tunes and fairytales, a world delightfully captured in Richard Sparks’ new English translation of Adelheid Wette’s libretto. But for World War I, he might have ended up in Australia. These were among […]
Satyagraha – Los Angeles Opera
I love explicit drama but I also love the perceptible processes of musical minimalism. These two emotions weighed on my mind as I reviewed LA Opera’s recent production of Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha” for OperaWire.