Five Great Opera Performances: Spring 2017

Here are five memorable operas from the spring of 2017.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Does this really need a caption? Photoshop by the author.

This is a fertile time for opera in New York, with singers, conductors and impresarios exercising imagination and daring to bring lesser known operas before an enthusiastic public. From the daring new music of the PROTOTYPE Festival to the lesser-known stage works of Rossini and Rimsky-Korsakov, our city is a cornucopia of operatic opportunity.

Here are five of the more impressive opera performances reviewed on Superconductor in the spring of 2017.

The Superconductor Untitled Awards 2014

Looking back at the best performances of the spring concert season.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Untitled # 26 by Richard Diebenkorn.
Painting © 1984 the estate of Richard Diebenkorn.

As the busy concert season winds down (and I get away for some much needed days of rest and recreation) it's time to look back on the very best of the spring 2014 concert season. Presenting the five best concert hall performances followed by the best chamber music, piano and choral concerts I attended and reviewed in the last six months. I'm entertaining suggestions as to what to call these awards. Until then they remain Untitled...and in chronological order.

Memories of the Gelb Administration

The Five Best (and Five Worst) Opera Productions at the Met, 2006-2012.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Aithra (Diana Damrau, L.) and Helena (Deborah Voigt, R.) extoll the virtues of the 
Omniscient Mussel (Jill Groves, standing, obscured) in Act I of Strauss' Die Ägyptische Helena. 
Photo by Ken Howard © 2007 The Metropolitan Opera.

Since beginning his tenure as general manager of the Met in 2006, Peter Gelb has been a fierce advocate for new productions. The current administration has ushered in seven new shows each season. If you do the math (and it's not hard) 42 new stagings have taken the boards.

This ambitious program has been advanced through cooperation with other opera houses, including the English National Opera, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and the Opera Lyon. Mr. Gelb has followed the old Broadway practice of "road testing" shows in international theaters before bringing them to New York.

Following the recent "kerfuffle" (parterre.box's term) over the Met's attempts at censoring bloggers and opera magazines it seems that the time is right to do a "greatest hits" of the last six years at the Met. Chronological order--click the links for the whole reviews.