Posts Tagged ‘barrie kosky’

The Return of the Opéra Comique

Saturday, October 8th, 2016

By: Frank Cadenhead The September 15 press conference was unusually packed for the season announcement of Opéra Comique. After being closed for 18 months and under new management, the interest in the future of this iconic Parisian institution was high. The new director, Olivier Mantei, was the only speaker and occupied the stage for about […]

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More Random Thoughts on Bayreuth

Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

By: Frank Cadenhead The Austrian newspaper, Der Kurier, let drop a great deal of information about what to expect in the future for the Bayreuth Festival. The new Ring in 2020, to the surprise of many, will not be conducted by the new Music Director of the festival, Christian Thielemann, but rather the Boston Symphony’s […]

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New works at the Jewish Museum; Rameau’s “Castor et Pollux”

Friday, May 16th, 2014

By Rebecca Schmid Classical music historiography of the 20th century tends to create neatly delineated periods, with World War Two creating a kind of indelible caesura in all things aesthetic and philosophical. This is particularly true in Germany, where the Nachkriegszeit (post-war period) is defined as a veritable epoch: a time in which the country […]

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Catching up on the opera scene…

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid The Deutsche Oper’s Tischlerei, a new wing for alternative music theater, hosted the results of Neue Szenen—a competition for composition launched by the Hans Eisler Conservatory—on April 8. Three young composers, Evan Gardner, Stefan Johannes Hanke and Leah Muir, emerged from a pool of 52 applicants with their musical settings of a […]

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‘Lulu’ as post-racial Manifesto

Friday, October 12th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The socially aware agenda of the Komische Oper’s new Intendant Barrie Kosky has been ruffling the feathers of Berliners months before he officially took over this season, not least with the decision to end the house tradition of performing operas exclusively in the German language. His emphasis on cultural pluralism aside, the […]

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The Elixir fails to work its Magic at Lincoln Center; Efterklang with the Wordless Music Orchestra

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid Many American opera-goers, including New Yorkers, look across the ocean and wish that their home institutions would afford themselves the same liberties of programming. Back in Berlin, the Deutsche Oper kicked off its season with a Lachenmann opera, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, while the Komische Oper launched a Monteverdi trilogy including […]

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Winds of Change at the Komische Oper: ‘Xerxes’ and ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The Komische Oper champions a populist approach through German-language productions and contemporary stage concepts that for some opera goers is synonymous with the most vexing of Regietheater. While the emphasis of the company’s founder Walter Felsenstein on living theater above musical purity remains a locally prized virtue, the house’s attendance rate sank […]

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Berlin Diary

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

By James Jorden I apologize for long period (two months!) of radio silence: it’s been a very busy spring season in New York, broken up by a two week vacation my traveling companion and I called the “Regietournee,” a sampling of some of the opera direction going on in Germany (and other northern European theaters.) […]

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