When French president (then-candidate) Emmanuel Macron waxed lyrical about his passion for the composer Gioachino Rossini in spring 2017, the transatlantic chattering classes gushed in admiration (and made snide comparisons to Donald Trump). But when British foreign minister Boris Johnson was…
For an institution in crisis—and the Metropolitan Opera, contending with multiple allegations of sexual abuse of minors against longtime conductor James Levine, as well as a years-long decline in ticket sales, is just that—the Met’s fundamentals are remarkably sound.
The Marriage of Figaro debuted in Vienna in 1786. The audience was so enthusiastic that, after just two performances, Emperor Joseph II ordered posters put up in the theater warning the public against too many encores, “to prevent the excessive duration of operas.” Mozart directed a second…
As a rule, I favor a strict separation between music and politics. Politics need not worm its way into every nook and cranny. Of course, sometimes composers like to impose politics on their music. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies declared that a string quartet of his was about the Iraq war: a depiction of…
The Scrapbook enjoys opera. We admit it. And although we believe the Metropolitan Opera in New York to be grossly overpriced, it’s still the best opera house in the world, and so we make our way there at least once a year.
What does it do to casually assumed theories of cultural equality if a civilization is founded on the idea that the gods require the ritualized butchering of human beings? When Mel Gibson released his twilight-of-the-Maya epic Apocalypto in 2006, some scholars of Mayan culture felt that the film’s…
When the curtain rose on the second act of the Met's new production of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, the audience applauded and cheered for the set. Represented onstage was the circa-1910 palace of a nouveau-riche arms merchant, complete with two giant mortars on wheels, a dozen Josef…
Fidelio was the first opera performed after the Second World War in Berlin and Vienna respectively. It was chosen to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was also the first opera Toscanini broadcast with the NBC Symphony. The Met has been producing it since…
Kamakura, Japan
Idomeneo is the earliest of Mozart's major operas and, traditionally, the least popular. It opened in Munich in 1781, a year before the Vienna debut of The Abduction from the Seraglio, which was a smash-hit. In Munich, a press notice praised Idomeneo's set design but forgot to mention Mozart.…
Cincinnati
Norse and Germanic mythology is often described as a series of cycles—each a collection of stories about a particular character, object, or event. In the case of Wagner's operas, the series depicts the Götterdämmerung, or the fall of the gods. It begins with the construction of Wotan's hall,…
Wooster, Ohio
A letter from a physician who practices and teaches at a medical school in New York, who introduced himself to the boss at last night’s protest of the Met's performance of the "Death of Klinghoffer."
Floyd Abrams writing in the Wall Street Journal:
Not The Onion:
I predicted on Fox News Sunday on December 30 that the Metropolitan Opera's production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda would be the entertainment event of the year. We had the good fortune to be invited by friends to see it at the Met last night, and it was spectacular. Bel canto doesn't get any…
I'm as thrilled as every other red-blooded Washington-area resident by the Redskins' victory yesterday. Yes, I did "predict" a Cowboys victory on Fox News Sunday. But that was, as I said on the show, a prediction contrary to my hopes, and of course was really made in order to avert the evil eye…
New York
One of the most sought-after classical singers in Europe, Magdalena Kozena has very little of the diva about her. The 37-year-old Czech-born, Berlin-based mezzo-soprano is warm and unpretentious, whether in interviews or in conversation with backstage visitors. A mother of two sons, ages five and…
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania