Robert T. Levine is a New York born-and-bred music writer with a particular interest in music for the voice. His work has appeared in many periodicals and newspapers. He is the author of many books, including The Story of the Orchestra, four volumes in the Black Dog & Leventhal Opera Library, and, most recently, Maria Callas: A Musical Biography.
Although Adriana Lecouvreur could never be referred to as one of the world’s greatest operas, Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili and Piotr Beczała give it the star treatment at the Metropolitan Opera.
The audience for The Met's first performance of La fanciulla del West this season arrived loaded for bear. Not only were they disappointed that Jonas Kaufmann was not singing (he's slated for shows starting 17th October), but their disappointment was heightened by the fact that tenor Yusif Eyvazov was singing.
Ahead of the group’s performance of Bach’s B minor Mass at Carnegie Hall, we talk to NYChoral’s Music Director David Hayes about sharpening the choir’s profile.
Candide is a witty satiric fable, intelligent, literary but not to a fault, and vastly entertaining. Created by a team of collaborators who fell out at different times in the work’s 52 year history – at one point or another, Lillian Hellman, Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Stephen Sondheim and, of course, composer Leonard Bernstein had a hand in it – it is unique in the operat
Phelim McDermott’s new Met production is set in Brooklyn’s Coney Island in the late 1950s and is brilliantly vivid looking, but Mozart's music plays second fiddle.
