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The secret of nymph
“Imagine, if you can, sitting in crisply-pressed linen, sipping a perfectly chilled strawberry mojito wafted to your sidewalk table by a ravishing server, as you listen to the murmur of leaves without...
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And all the rest is talk
“Labor! Oh, the problem of labor at the Met is gargantuan,” Our Own JJ (not pictured) would have said, had he thought of it, during a panel discussion on WQXR’s Conducting Business program, which can...
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Tiara in the aisles
Our Own JJ (pictured) is off to cover the Met’s opening night; meanwhile, you, the cher public, are invited to listen to the festivities beginning at 5:45. La Casa della Cieca will be open for your...
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Chorus of the exiled protesters
“A philosophical espousal of the principle of protest doesn’t entail an endorsement of the content of a particular demonstration. I applaud the Klinghoffer protesters for voicing their opinions, but...
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Wedding bell blues
Our Own JJ (not pictured) writes in the New York Observer, “The combination of the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night—one of the most glamorous social events of the year, in theory at least—and a new...
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Mourning in America
“Taken by itself, the St. Matthew Passion felt a little mundane. But compared to Zauberflöte, it could have been the Second Coming.” Our Own JJ was in no mood last week, it seems. [New York Observer]
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Rolling along
“As Italo Calvino has been widely quoted, ‘A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.’ That’s certainly true of a classic in non-literary form, the musical Show Boat,...
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Rossini crescendo
“Are we really only two months into the Met season? After acrimonious union negotiations that threatened to shutter the company, music director James Levine’s first opening night in four years, Anna...
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It’s complicated
“Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a problematic opera—or, rather, it is an opera that has, in the last century or so, become problematic. Its composer, Richard Wagner, was a profound artist who...
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Boys and girls, not together
“…it’s particularly bewildering that before 2013 there was no such thing as the Prototype Festival, a program so essential that it feels like it must have been around forever. With a splendid sense of...
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Shortlisted
“Surprises—or let’s say pleasant surprises—are among the chief joys of frequent opera-going. Best, and most precious, of all these impromptu delights is the eagerly anticipated performance that soars...
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For your eyes only
“Don’t bother with The Loft or The Boy Next Door: the most spine-chilling thriller currently playing isn’t on the screen of your local multiplex but on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.” [New York...
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Singular sensation
“If Mozart had only had the sense to write Don Giovanni in a… single-performer format, last Wednesday’s revival at the Met would have been one for the ages.” [New York Observer] Photo by Marty...
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“The cold bothered me, anyway”
“It was the chilliest opening night at the Met in years on Monday—barely 15 degrees when the curtain went up on the company premiere of La Donna del Lago. But you can’t blame the polar vortex for the...
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Dongs of mirth and triumph sing!
Donkey dick and other Asian fusion vaudeville acts arouse “The BAM Effect” at Handel’s Semele. [New York Observer]
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The kids are not all right
“’They’re young… they’re in love… and they kill people’ goes the tagline for the 1968 film Bonnie and Clyde, but the slogan could apply almost as well to the outlaw pair at the center of the...
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Sometimes just pretzels and beer
“Nobody wants to spend three or four hours of their life sitting through a mediocre opera performance, especially when you consider what tickets cost these days. But mediocre means ‘average,’ so,...
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Time and again I would try to say
Our own publisher and New York Observer scribe Julie Jordan James Jorden plays pundit again for WQXR’s “Conducting Business,” discussing musical comedy in opera houses and dishing about opera singers...
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Ham and ex
Our Own JJ was only semi-amused: “Pagliacci was a solid success, but Cavalleria Rusticana bombed on just about every level.” Photo by Cory Weaver/ Metropolitan Opera.
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