The Many Joys of Figaro

Some thoughts on thirty years of life with Mozart's opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A piano score for The Marriage of Figaro featuring
Cherubino in the chair,  discovered by the Count.

The Marriage of Figaro and I have been through a lot together. I first saw Mozart's opera at the New York City Opera with my parents and while my young self may have snoozed through some of its four hour length (I think I was ten years old at the time) what I remembered of the show was engrossing, the madcap household and its goings-on, with the supremely confident and nimble Figaro at its center had immediate appeal.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Turandot

Three very different casts and three runs for Puccini's final opera. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The executioner Pu-Tin-Pao (Left) confronts a giant Chinese dragon in the first act
of the Metropolitan Opera's production of Puccini's Turandot.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

This umpteenth revival of the Metropolitan Opera's everything-into-the-wok Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini's Turandot appears in three separate runs this season. Christine Goerke, Lise Lindstrom, Jennifer Wilson and Nina Stemme are the four formidable sopranos who will sing the hellishly difficult title role. This is one of the last surviving Zeff productions in the Met repertory along with La bohéme, and is a feast for the eyes as well as the ears.

Opera Review: Heart of Glass

The Met opens with Bartlett Sher's new Otello.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The ocular proof: Iago (Željko Lučić, left) reminds Otello (Aleksandrs Antonenko)
why Verdi considered naming this opera Jago.

The Metropolitan Opera's new production of Verdi's Otello, which opened the company's 2015 season last night in a special gala performance, contains a preponderance of good directorial ideas, supporting a strong cast in this adaptation of Shakespeare's drama. This performance was broadcast live in Times Square on that crossing's giant television screens, and lost none of its power to shock and entertain despite having to compete with tourists, fire trucks, chattering desnudas and a street performer in an Elmo costume who stopped bothering said tourists long enough to watch the drama unfold.

Concert Review: A Hook and an Uppercut

The New York Philharmonic plays On The Waterfront.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Give him the hook: Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront.
Photo © 1954 Columbia Pictures. 

In the history of the New York Philharmonic, no conductor is more revered or loved than Leonard Bernstein, the Massachusetts-born composer who held the post of music director from 1958-1969. On Friday night at the soon-to-be-renamed Avery Fisher Hall, the Philharmonic kicked off this year's series celebrating film music with Bernstein's lone film score: On The Waterfront.