Evgeny Kissin brought some of the old-time magic to the Kennedy Center yesterday, in the all-Liszt program he is touring with (here's John von Rhein's take on the Chicago stop). One goes to a Kissin show expecting technical brilliance, of course, but ...
Caught that 2008 Zefferelli Aida w/ Bobby, Violeta Urmana, and like 10,000 other people at the West End Cinema here last night. It's on DVD here. This is a sumptuously sung production. Urmana's virtues are well known, but the beauty of her voice here ...
Props to WNO for giving great Butterfly this evening, in what is definitely its most consistent production so far this season, due in great measures to a very exciting A-cast. Mind you, with two full casts of the main principals, plus another cast for ...
Clearly a bit tardy on this, but wanted to say something for Internet posterity about Nixon in China, because it really is a marvelous thing. My familiarity with "new" operas is far from encyclopedic, but it's the first time I've seen an opera ...
Joyce DiDonato's KC recital last night reiterated (for anyone who has been living in a cave for the last couple years) that she is the real deal--a compelling interpreter and stage presence armed with an exceptionally pure voice and assassin-like ...
Heard the recent NSO program Thursday night. The bookends for this series, Smetana's Overture to The Kiss and Tchaikovsky's Manfred suite (yes, THAT Manfred) were robust if somewhat static demonstration opportunities for the orchestra, ...
I was lazy about mentioning at this time, and moreover, I wasn't at a live show so what do I know--but it looks like Sieglinde protested here and here against all this ragging on SRad for being flat and I feel compelled to provide some solidarity. ...
Saw the Baltimore Symphony Orch (for the first time actually) at Strathmore last night--no Marin Alsop tho, the conductor was Spaniard Juanjo Mena. The first offering, Haydn's "La Reine" symphony was what it was. Nicely put together, priddy, and ...
Probably the most offensive thing about this column by Neal Gabler is simply that such an amazingly lazy column could make it into a paper. The argument, about how grassroots democrats are throwing off the shackles of elite taste dictums by not ...
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