The issue with having a transformative experience in the arts is that it opens the door to a lifetime of disappointments. I fell completely for opera when I saw Natalie Dessay in Mary Zimmerman’s production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the Metropolitan Opera in 2007, and all that has given me is nearly a […]
Category: Review
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Broken Heartbeat
George Benjamin’s opera “Written On Skin” telescopes back and forth through past and present. Based on a vida of the 12th century Catalan troubadour Guillaume de Cabestanh, it takes place in a medieval world where books are precious objects, but references air travel, pornography, and modern feminism. The work, which premiered three years ago, makes […]
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Chorus and Orchestra of Generals
Kim Jong-il, the late Dear Leader of the People’s Republic of Korea, wrote six operas in two years. Not only that: according to one version of his official biography, they are all “better than any in the history of music.” Even accounting for the immodesty of dictators, this claim is unusual. Most despots see themselves […]