APPOMATTOX: The War Within
6J14flyMOQo Human behavior’s funny. The more we try to change the more we don’t seem able to. Are we cursed to repeat the same mistakes in our private lives —…
Ciao, Luciano
Okay, he stayed too long at the fair. The idea of a 60-year-old, 400-pound man playing a starving artist failed to suspend disbelief. The three tenors crap was execrable. He…
Die Meisterbators
From today’s Deutsche Welle: Germany’s annual Bayreuth Festival of Wagner operas began on Wednesday with a highly anticipated, make-or-break production by the 29-year-old great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner. And…
Beverly Sills, 1929-2007
Beverly Sills, the All-American diva from Brooklyn, has died of cancer. Bubbles, as she was known to all, was a big lady with a big heart whose down-to-earth personality, talent…
Cue the Tenor
So, the wonderful Serbian film director Emir Kusterica’s new opera Time of the Gypsies (based on his zany film of the same name) opened last night in Paris. Woody Allen…
Young Caesar in Lust
Any musical work which has a long. complex, and– dare I say it? –troubled history — can’t help but raise a red flag. Is the artist wrestling with something alive…
The Good, the Bad, and the Anal
Gérard Mortier, who is famous for painting lipstick on corpses and taking them to the ball, will become general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera after…
What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?
The Metropolitan Opera announced that its co-production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha with the English National Opera will debut next season on April 11, 2008. The ENO is doing nine performances…
Lost in Translation?
Since it’s opera week here at Sequenza 21 and there’s a lot of chatter in the comments about transplanting operas between cultures and Galen has raised the topic of fugues…
Man (or Woman) Overboard! Tobias Picker’s Back in Town
Speaking of great American operas, Tobias Picker has written two of them; Emmeline, which is an unqualified masterpiece, and An American Tragedy, which I think history will regard more dearly…