Opera Review: He Sleeps With the Fishes (and Everyone Else)

The Juilliard Opera mounts Don Giovanni.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Take my wife, please. Masetto (Gregory Feldman, right) looks on as the Don (Hubert Zapiór)
woos Zerlina (Jessica Niles) in a scene from Act I of Don Giovanni.
Photo by Richard Termine.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music is timeless. But are the ribald, sexist opera libretti of Lorenzo da Ponte still workable on the stage in this era of #metoo? That is the question asked by the Juilliard Opera and director Emma Griffin. Her new staging of Don Giovanni bowed Wednesday night at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. In its two acts, Ms. Griffin sought to turn this opera, the story of a rabid sexual predator at play in the streets of Seville, Spain on its head and deliver a message about today's sexual ethics.

She partly succeeded.

Throwing in the Towel

The Metropolitan Opera fires James Levine.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Facing the music: James Levine was fired by the Met today.
Photo by Naomi Vaughan © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

In a breaking story by Michael Cooper in The New York Times, the Metropolitan Opera fired longtime conductor and music director James Levine today, ending an era and a scandal at America's largest opera house.