Archive | Concerts

St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, August 2, 2018—(Manfred Honeck, European Union Youth Orchestra, Thomas Hampson (baritone), Luca Pisaroni (bass-baritone), Maria Nazarova, Cornelia Horak (soprano), Iris Vermillion (mezzo-soprano), Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno). Easy to overlook or underestimate, a recent “Concert for Peace” at Vienna’s St. Stephen’s cathedral–sounding half hackneyed, half like a tourist trap–turned out to be […]

Festival della Valle d’Itria, Martina Franca, 28-29 July, 2018–The Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, Puglia draws faithful audiences by sticking to a winning formula: by presenting obscure operatic titles and selecting casts on the basis of their vocal merits rather than their fame. This was the approach cultivated by artistic directors Rodolfo Celletti […]

May 3, 2018, Carnegie Hall, New York The Orchestra Now, Leon Botstein (cond.), Peter Serkin and Anna Polonsky, pianos Give Leon Botstein credit: as a conductor he has his ups and downs, but his programming is often both important and original. At The Orchestra Now’s most recent concert he offered a pair of unknown (outside […]

Aaron Davies Hall (The City College of New York), Harlem Friday, April 20, 2018 7pm Conductor: Jan Latham-Koenig The Orchestra Now, Bard College’s excellent ensemble of graduate students, presented a very appealing program at a free concert up in Harlem this past Friday consisting of Vaughan-Williams’ gorgeous Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Schubert’s […]

Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NY. April 11, 2018–After a run of five performances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in which tenor Vittorio Grigolo far outshone the evening’s Lucia–the puzzlingly bad Olga Peretyatko–April 11th brought a welcome role debut at the Met in the person of Jessica Pratt. The 39-year-old British/Australian soprano has been lauded […]