Opera Review: Lips Inc.

The New York City Opera resurrects L'Amore di Tre Re.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Skirt thing: tenor Raffaele Abete engages in some unlikely fetishism in L'Amore di Tre Re.
Photo © 2018 The New York City Opera.

The New York City Opera exists now through a strange disguise, as a kind of hybrid company presenting a few shows each year at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater and a few others at smaller spaces around New York. This week featured the company's first production in decades of Italo Montemezzi's  L'Amore di Tre Re, in a new staging by company general manager Michael Capasso. This opera is like a collision between every great love story: Tristan, Otello and Pelleas et Melisande packed into a lean ninety-minute score.

Back in Business (and ain't it grand)

The Met reopens, concert halls are dark.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

With the subways down, Ariel (Audrey Luna) can ride a chandelier to work!
Scene from Act III of  Thomas Àdes' The Tempest.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

(Ed. Note: We here at Superconductor have weathered Hurricane Sandy and expect to be resuming a full schedule of classical music coverage, time and the restoration of the Metropolitan Transit Authority permitting. We will attempt to continue publishing the very best in classical music coverage, although you may see more DVD and CD reviews on here in the next few days.)

Along with the city's electrical grid and subway system, the New York classical music scene is slowly getting back on its feet. The Metropolitan Opera has announced that it will resume operations tonight. It is not the place of this blog to comment on the ironic coincidence that the work to reopen America's biggest opera house is Thomas Àdes' opera The Tempest.

The Met resumes business as usual on Friday and Saturday with further performances of Turandot, The Tempest and Le Nozze di Figaro.

Opera lovers who've already seen the Àdes opus have a choice tonight. At Lincoln Center's Rose Theater (located in the Time Warner Center at W. 59t St. and Broadway) Teatro Gratticielo will offer a rare performance of La Nave by Italo Montemezzi. This show is postponed from Monday night.