Wagner’s groundbreaking, metaphysical romance Tristan und Isolde returned to the Metropolitan Opera on March 9 for the first time in ten years in a bold new production featuring Lise Davidsen, opera’s current “it” girl. While the promotion focused mainly on Davidsen and Michael Spyres and on the Met directing debut of Yuval Sharon, the rewards came from the efforts of the strong cast, the superb orchestra,[...]
The 2024 Bayreuth Festival season marked the third and penultimate year of Valentin Schwarz’s staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Like many current productions, Schwarz’s version opts for a contemporary setting, […]
On 12 November 1880, Cosima Wagner noted in her diaries what Richard had said about the Hermann Levi: “as a Jew—all he has to do is to learn how to […]
The Met’s last new staging before 2020’s pandemic shutdown–François Girard’s Der fliegende Holländer–disappointingly staged and cast and poorly conducted by Valery Gergiev–returned to port more enjoyably for four end-of-season shows. Girard […]
It’s back! For the second time the Metropolitan Opera has revived Robert Lepage’s much loathed production of Wagner’s epic tetralogy, which is famously dominated by a vast mechanical contraption (“the […]