Opera Philadelphia's 'Don Carlo' (second review)

A risk that paid off

Opera Philadelphia took a giant leap with its production of Verdi’s sprawling masterpiece.

Steve Cohen

May 05, 2015 · Articles · 4 minute read

Philadelphia Orchestra plays Bernstein's 'Mass' (second review)

Music-theater or agitprop?

Is Leonard Bernstein’s Mass gospel music, classical, Broadway, or rock ‘n’ roll? Yes. All of those and more.

Steve Cohen

May 02, 2015 · Articles · 3 minute read

Philadelphia Orchestra plays Bernstein's 'Mass' (first review)

Singin’ the liturgical blues

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass was, with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the flop of his career. Its belated Philadelphia premiere, despite an elaborate production, showed why.

Robert Zaller

May 02, 2015 · Articles · 5 minute read

Tempesta di Mare, Café et Catastrophe

A novel brew and a classic tale

Tempesta di Mare celebrated coffee and recounted a Greek tragedy in a recreation of an 18th-century French musical salon.

Tom Purdom

Apr 28, 2015 · Articles · 4 minute read

The trouble with Verdi’s ‘Don Carlo’

Sympathy for a tyrant

Verdi's Don Carlo is an opera that’s better heard than seen. Because the unevenness of its dramatic line tends to undercut the beauty of the music, Don Carlo is worth attending only for the chance to hear vibrant voices — which, happily in this case, were mostly magnificent.

Dan Rottenberg

Apr 28, 2015 · Articles · 7 minute read

The Philadelphia Orchestra plays John Williams

Time warps

Stéphane Denève’s program with the Philadelphia Orchestra was a mixed bag, stylistically and musically, with the lightweight John Williams thrown in with a Magnus Lindberg premiere and a Prokofiev masterpiece.

Robert Zaller

Apr 25, 2015 · Articles · 5 minute read

Philadelphia Orchestra’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’

The wolf, defanged

At Saturday’s performance of Peter and the Wolf, narrator Michael Boudewyns unveiled an elaborate array of symbolic props in an effort to offer the audience something for the eye as well as the ear.

Dan Rottenberg

Apr 21, 2015 · Articles · 3 minute read

Lyric Fest: 'I'll Make Me a World'

The world, with all its sorrows

Lyric Fest joined the Singing City chorus in a highly emotional portrait of the wonders and difficulties of human life.

Tom Purdom

Apr 21, 2015 · Articles · 4 minute read

Takács Quartet at the Perelman

Music in its best and purest sense

The Takács Quartet, in its annual Philadelphia appearance, showed again why it’s one of the world’s best, a few tonal lapses notwithstanding.

Robert Zaller

Apr 19, 2015 · Articles · 5 minute read

The BMI 'music spy' controversy

Paying the piper: Should music be free?

People were outraged to learn that BMI and other copyright protectors are sending "spies" to clubs and other live-music venues. Not too surprisingly, there's another side to the story.

Bruce Klauber

Apr 19, 2015 · Articles · 3 minute read