Musical America Blogs

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 26, 2017 MUNICH — Post is under revision. Photos © Arthaus, BelAir Classiques, Querstand, Supraphon, Warner Classics Related posts: Winter Discs Time for Schwetzingen Ives: Violin Sonatas on CD Chung to Conduct for Trump Manon, Let’s Go

By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 13, 2017 MUNICH — Philipp Stölzl’s new and relatively sane production of Andrea Chénier will be video-streamed Saturday by Bavarian State Opera as part of a regular free service. — when: 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT), March 18, 2017 — where: https://www.staatsoper.de/tv.html Omer Meir Wellber brings his inimitable visceral […]

By: Frank Cadenhead Where is Stephen Colbert when you need him? He certainly could do a comedy routine about the train wreck that is the opening of the musical season in Paris this year. The goofiness of multiple openings of world-class events on the same day would get lots of laughs. In his absence I […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 17, 2016 MUNICH — When Anja Harteros was singing her first Toscas three seasons ago, it was clear she had the vocal resources for the role, and the Mediterranean temperament. Even so, the portrayal didn’t quite compute. Enter Bryn Terfel, a Scarpia to rattle the aloofest, longest-legged of prima donnas. […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: April 11, 2014 MUNICH — Watching Manfred Honeck lead the Munich Philharmonic in Strauss last Sunday (April 6), a question came to mind. Why isn’t this the man replacing Lorin Maazel next year? With refreshing conviction and broad arm gestures à la Carlos Kleiber, Honeck drew polished performances from the orchestra […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 27, 2013 MUNICH — Martin Kušej’s new staging of La forza del destino for Bavarian State Opera opened Dec. 22 and is due for streaming tomorrow. Well cast, it alas trivializes the feud and the questions of honor and destiny that excited Verdi and his librettist Piave, despite being the […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: October 17, 2013 MUNICH — Spirograph needlemaniac defaces legendary (and conveniently deceased) Brünnhilde. And so on. Bavarian State Opera’s anticipated additions to its portrait gallery went public yesterday, their twenty-one victims — er, honored subjects — being depicted in various media by twenty-one visual artists. Scattered docent notes: • Anja Harteros […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: October 13, 2013 MUNICH — Next Wednesday (Oct. 16) new portraits go on display in Bavarian State Opera’s lobby. Twenty-one new portraits. Astrid Varnay, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Kurt Moll, Brigitte Fassbaender, Lucia Popp, Edita Gruberová, René Kollo, Hildegard Behrens and Waltraud Meier are among the worthy singing subjects, company troopers all. But […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: June 28, 2013 MUNICH — It helps when two of Caruso’s “four greatest singers” live nearby, the more so when they act as capably as they sing. That was the edge enjoyed by Bavarian State Opera in restaging Verdi’s Il trovatore to open its 138-year-old Munich Opera Festival yesterday, one of […]