Metropolitan Opera Preview: Salome

The opera that made Richard Strauss a household name and shocked the world.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Head-hunter: Patricia Racette is Salome in the Met's new revival of Strauss' opera.
Photo © San Antonio Opera.

Salome is a white-knuckle ride down the road of excess, leading not to the palace of wisdom but to depravity and death. And yes the Met has scheduled performances of it right around the holidays.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: L'Amour de Loin

Long distance love is the subject of Kaija Saariaho's 21st century opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Keep 'em separated: Susanna Philips and Eric Owens in L'Amour de Loin. 
Image © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

Sixteen years after its Salzburg premiere and fourteen years after the first North American performances, the Metropolitan Opera finally stages L'Amour de Loin ("Love From Afar") by contemporary Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, in a new production by Robert Lepage.

Concert Review: A Game of Chairs

Iván Fischer leads (and reseats) the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Iván Fischer leads the New York Philharmonic this week.
Photo courtesy the New York Philharmonic © 2014 The Budapest Festival Orchestra.

The seating of an orchestra is usually at the discretion of the conductor. On Wednesday night, visitors to David Geffen Hall for the first of three concerts featuring Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer and the New York Philharmonic were confronted with a radical rearrangement of the orchestra. The stage risers, almost never seen at a Philharmonic concert, were in use, putting the musicians in tiers with the basses at the top, dead center and directly opposite the conductor's podium.

Opera Review: The Girl in the Bubble

Kristin Opalais returns as Manon Lescaut.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Cast aside: Kristin Opalais in the last scene of Manon Lescaut. 
Photo by Ken Howard © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

When the Metropolitan Opera opened its new Richard Eyre production of Manon Lescaut last February, it stirred up a firestorm of criticism. Mr. Eyre moved the action ahead to France in the 1940s, an occupied and defeated nation under the Nazi boot. On Monday night, this revival featuring Kristin Opalais in the role that she created last season seemed particularly on point, its oppressive sets, decadent, doomed atmosphere and the libretto's treatment of women as a commodity a set of mirrors for these troubled times.