Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Deutsche Oper Berlin 29.6.22 In the era of the hyperobject you almost have to salute a production that retains the visual signifiers of Regieoper while narrowing the opera’s scope of meaning instead of widening it, particularly when the work concerned is by the most totalizing composer of them all, Richard Wagner. You almost have to hand it to them. But only almost. Jossi Wieler, Anna Vierbrock, and Sergio Morabito’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is sometimes clever, reasonably entertaining, has a decent take on the ending, and never sets its goals particularly ..read more

Der Freischütz De Nationale Opera, Amsterdam, 21.6.22 Director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Der Freischütz, which I saw in Amsterdam but is now streaming free on OperaVision, is a rehearsal room production. OK, I thought, it’s late pandemic (one hopes) and we’re partying like it’s 2010, when this gambit was ubiquitous. It’s an interesting choice for Serebrennikov, who directed an entire Nabucco in Hamburg while under house arrest in Russia and has since relocated to Germany. Opera about opera often has a kind of tunnel vision, cutting off the world outside in favor of self-contemplation. But, like ..read more

All photos show the 2019 cast, not the cast described here La forza del destino Oper Frankfurt, 6.19.22 When director Tobias Kratzer says that Verdi’s La forza del destino is an opera that is centrally about racism, I don’t disagree with him. It’s an opera about a lot of things—the force of history, war, how tenors and baritones never recognize each other. But when you remember that its animating force is not just the firearms accident at the start of the opera but the Calatrava family’s deep animus toward Peruvian Alvaro, it makes Carlos’s misguided obsession with vengeance seem like not only ..read more

Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Dido and Aeneas/Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Oper Frankfurt, June 18, 2022 I’m seeing some opera this summer related to a project I’m doing about “problem operas” and I thought I would write about some of the performances here. This first one wasn’t planned to be part of my research project—I was in Frankfurt for something else—but I wasn’t going to skip such an interesting-looking prospect, and I’m glad I saw it. On its face this is double bill is odd, above all due to the drastically disjointed musical style. But Barrie Kosky’s production, a cult favorite here in Frankfur ..read more

My book, The Operetta Empire, is now available from the University of California Press! A history of Viennese operetta in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it explores how operetta theaters and works by composers like Franz Lehár and Emmerich Kálmán articulated issues of nationality, gender, and class. If you like my writing on this blog, you will love the last chapter, which considers current operetta production practice in theaters like the Volksoper and Komische Oper Berlin. The Operetta Empire was named a notable book of 2021 by Alex Ross at The Rest is Noise and reviewed in Nov ..read more

It is I, your blogger, shut inside a house, like everyone. I watched the Met’s At-Home Gala this afternoon and have some thoughts. You can watch the whole thing on the Met’s website until April 24. Many of the performances were delightful, and I’ll get to that. But first: the Met’s current slogan is “The Voice Must Be Heard.” The “must” is doing a lot of work here; the Met’s recent box office suggests that many do not find it imperative. This gala repeated that motto frequently, along with injunctions to donate to the Met. In a series of videos, we saw the lovely or in a few cases terrifying ..read more

That’s no silver rose, that’s a whole silver rose shrub. The Met’s new Rosenkavalier is a pleasant surprise. It’s good and you should see it, but maybe not for the reasons you expect. While much heralded as Renée Fleming’s farewell to the operatic stage, she’s not its primary attraction. She’s fine and deserves a nice send-off for a distinguished career, but she is too pallid to be this production’s star. Yet the Met has, seemingly accidentally, ended up with something way more interesting and harder to achieve than a Marschallin showcase. Robert Carsen’s production is a creative and coherent ..read more

Greetings, meine Damen und Herren, I appear among you today to convey my Smetana hot takes, which were simply too spicy for social media to handle. Trust the Germans to make The Bartered Bride dark, right? Smetan, Die verkaufte Braut (Prodaná nevěsta but in the German translation by Max Kalbeck). Bayerische Staatsoper, 3 January 2019. New production conducted by Tomáš Hanus, directed by David Bösch, sets by Patrick Bannwart, costumes by Falko Herold, lights by Michael Bauer. Cast included Selene Zanetti (Marie [Mařenka]), Pavol Breslik (Hans [Jeník]), Günther Groissböck (Kezal [Kec ..read more

Warning, I have been struck by the blogging spirit again. I have a lot of notes and half-written reviews in my notebook, so I may be struck again later this week. Sorry for the relative lack of freshness, but think, on a scholarly writing scale this is still lightning fast!!! So I went to see Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House and just another warning, it’s going to take me a few minutes to get to the point here. As a very infrequent blogger I am allowing myself the luxury of taking my time. Wagner, Lohengrin. Royal Opera House, 7/1/2018, conducted by Andris Nelsons, production directed by Da ..read more

I wanted to see Stefan Herheim’s new Glyndebourne staging of Pelléas et Mélisande in part out of perverse curiosity. What would happen when opera’s most hyperactive extrovert directs opera’s least flamboyant, er, opera? I was on my way to the Nineteenth-Century Music Conference in Huddersfield so I went to Glyndebourne first. Also I remembered I have a blog so I decided to write about it here. And unfortunately I think Debussy might be Herheim’s kryptonite. Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande. Glyndebourne Festival, 6/30/2018 (new production premiere). Conductor Robin Ticciati (conductor), Stefan ..read more