Metropolitan Opera Preview: Die Zauberflöte

The "composer's cut" of Mozart's final opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Here comes the sun king: René Pape as Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

In the years of general manager Peter Gelb's reign over the Metropolitan Opera House, one of his signature initiatives has been an annual "holiday presentation" of a famous opera, drastically cut to one long act and sung in English. The most frequent masterwork on the chopping block has been Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.

Concert Review: A Storm Cloud of Strings

Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet make Landfall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson (far right) play Landfall.
Photo by Mark Allan © 2014 Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet each occupy a unique place in modern music. A fearless performance artist, she destroyed barriers between pop and avant-garde with tracks like "O Superman" and albums like Big Science. Kronos, for their part is at the vanguard of modern music, playing their amplified strings in deep explorations of composers like George Crumb and Terry Riley.

Concert Review: Ahead of the Curve

The New York Philharmonic opens 2014--for real this time.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert in action. Photo courtesy nyphil.tumblr.com
Image © 2014 The New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic turned from movie music this week with its first subscription concert at Avery Fisher Hall. This ambitious program paired a new Clarinet Concerto by composer Unsuk Chin with the Symphony No. 1 of former Philharmonic music director Gustav Mahler under the baton of the orchestra's current leader Alan Gilbert.

Opera Broadcast Review: A Wedding Under Protest

The Met opens with a new Le Nozze di Figaro.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Times Square broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's
Le Nozze di Figaro with Ildar Abdrazakov and Marliss Peterson.
 Photo by the author © 2014 Paul J. Pelkonen

Opening night at the Metropolitan Opera is a glitzy, glamorous occasion, with seats in the cavernous auditorium jacked to three times their normal price, an audience of minor celebrities strolling down the red carpet and this year, protestors outside Lincoln Center. Last year, they were against Valery Gergiev, this year they decried the company's planned October  production of the John Adams opera The Death of Klinghoffer.

Concert Review: A Second Climb, up a Treacherous Peak

Christian Tetzlaff opens the 92nd St. Y season with Bach.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christian Tetzlaff and friend. Photo by Giorgio Bertazzi from the artist's website.
Bach image added by the author.

A performance of all six solo violin works by Johann Sebastian Bach (the three Sonatas and three Partitas) are the musician's equivalent of a climb up K2 without oxygen or rope. On Tuesday night, German violinist Christian Tetzlaff took on this feat (for the second time in five years) at the Kaufmann Concert Hall, a staid but intimate auditorium that is ideal in acoustic and scale for this kind of performance. This performance also served as season opener for the prestigious Upper East Side venue, a fact celebrated with the distribution of free champagne to the audience at intermission.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Lucia di Lammermoor

High notes and high tragedy in the Highlands.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Joseph Calleja is Edgardo in the Met's revival of Lucia di Lammermoor.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

The bride of Lammermoor returns to the Met stage, in Mary Zimmerman's entertaining yet controversial production.

Metropolitan Opera Alters Rush Ticket Policy

Or...why Superconductor will probably not be covering the Met anymore.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

New changes in the Metropolitan Opera 2014-15 Rush Ticket Policy make reviewing
performances in the coming season all but impossible.

The Metropolitan Opera announced today that its Rush Tickets program is being drastically altered for the 2014-15 season. The revised ticket program designed (according to the press release) to allow "expanded, more democratic access to Met tickets for $25" means that Superconductor will most likely not

be covering or reviewing most Metropolitan Opera performances in the 2014-15 season.

Concert Review: Reunited With Minimal Fuss

Steve Reich and Philip Glass open BAM NextWave--together.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Across the great divide: the composers Philip Glass (left) and Steve Reich.
Photo courtesy Nonesuch Records.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Philip Glass and Steve Reich were friends and sometimes collaborators. A rift between the two men resulted in each becoming a separate driving force behind minimalism, a compositional style that favored small melodic cells, expanded, repeated and grown into huge crystalline structures that beguiled the ear and soothed the mind. Both men are now 77, and have ended their forty-year feud. On Tuesday night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,  the composers took the stage together for the first time in decades.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Hansel and Gretel

The Metropolitan Opera revives a nightmare before Christmas.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Appetizer for destruction: Robert Brubaker returns as the Witch in the Met's
revival of Hansel and Gretel. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

When I was growing up, the Met's production of Hansel and Gretel (by Otto Schenk) was something to see, with a gorgeous gingerbread house, imaginative animal costumes, and a dream ballet featuring realistic-looking angels that brought tears to the eyes of the most jaded adult. For decades, Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera stood as a stalwart family favorite at the Metropolitan Opera House, as traditional as the massive tree that adorns the Grand Tier promenade in December.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: La traviata

The little red dress returns. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A boy, a girl and a timepiece. Marina Poplavskaya (right) in La Traviata.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2010 The Metropolitan Opera.

This stripped-down Willy Decker staging of La Traviata (introduced at the very end of 2010)
eliminates the elegance of 19th century Paris for a bare, clinical room, a single curved bench and a giant clock that ticks down the remaining minutes in the life of Violetta, the courtesan who is at the heart of Verdi's most intimate tragedy.