Performer: Peter Rundel

The Zurich opera house launches a novel production of Stefan Wirth's new opera in three movements based on the popular 1999 novel by Tracy Chevalier. 

A Dog's Life – Frederic Rzewski's 2nd Piano Concerto – is full of playful detail, but a little too long.

My preparations for a Thursday evening trip to Lincoln Center: studying the super-formula of Stockhausen’s 29-hour opera project, entitled Licht; choosing an outfit in the perfect shade of cerulean; girding myself for a panic attack similar to the one I experienced the last time I witnessed a section from Licht (Oktophonie).

A first impression of Quartett, a 2011 chamber opera composed by Luca Francesconi and staged by Àlex Ollé (of the innovative Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus), may be that it presents an unapologetically modernist take on the Liaisons dangereuses story which will impenetrably hang together as some fearsomely Teutonic total artwork.

The Ensemble Resonanz is a Hamburg-based contemporary chamber orchestra committed to finding bridges to modernism amid works from centuries past, and to that end this concert featured Helmut Lachenmann set alongside Mozart, and Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles rescored by Manuel Hidalgo.

La journée du 7 février au Festival Présences a eu son lot de belles réussites, du « cabaret de bas étage » qu'est Tingel Tangel selon Aperghis à la création française captivante de Where are you? d’Ondřej Adámek.