Candide channels Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in Philadelphia

By Susan Gould, 24 June 2019

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“Alek Shrader was sweet in voice and portrayal as the benighted, naïve Candide”

Reviewed at Kimmel Center: Marian Anderson Hall, Philadelphia on 20 June 2019

Bernstein, Candide

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Conductor

Kevin Newbury, Director

Andrew Boyce, Set Designer

Paul Carey, Costume Designer

Alek Shrader, Candide

Erin Morley, Cunegonde

Denyce Graves, Old Lady

Kevin Vortmann, Doctor Pangloss

William Burden, Governor

Amanda Lynn Bottoms, Paquette

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Bradley Cooper, Narrator

Carey Mulligan, Narrator

Opera Philadelphia's Unholy Wars creates a dialogue with Monteverdi

Cameron Kelsall, 23rd September

Arab-American tenor Karim Sulayman devises a thoughtful pastiche that centers the perspective omitted from Early Modern depictions of the Middle East in music.

****1

Paranoia and duplicity in Lyric Opera of Chicago's Fellow Travelers

Katherine Syer, 23rd March

Fellow Travelers is shot through with darkness, making for a chilling performance by Lyric Opera of Chicago.

****1

Méphistophélès, the master puppeteer

Katherine Syer, 18th March

Chicago's new Faust is a quest for youth but also a reflection on insipiration, fabrication and manipulation.

****1

Steve Jobs scores a success in Santa Fe

Ilana Walder-Biesanz, 22nd July

Mason Bates's much-hyped first opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, excited Santa Fe audiences despite its dramatic shortcomings.

***11

In new Norma, bel canto in the Iron Age

Dan Wang, 28th January

In the end, Newbury’s production leaves you with more questions than it answers.

**111

Maria Stuarda at Seattle Opera: Donizetti fever rages on from coast to coast

Thomas May, 9th March

The thrills of Tudor (pseudo-)history and bel canto expressivity combine in the second of Donizetti's “Three Queens” operas, Maria Stuarda, making its company debut at Seattle Opera.

***11

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Susan Gould

Philadelphia native Susan Gould has been writing professionally about classical music since her Barnard College years in New York. She has written for both American and European publications, primarily during fifteen years in Europe, and has done liner notes for recordings and program notes for opera companies and orchestras. Among those she has interviewed have been Sills, Tebaldi, Popp and Fleming; Bumbry, Ludwig, Fassbaender, and von Stade; del Monaco, Kraus and Pavarotti; Prey, Morris and Ramey; Muti, Abbado, Giulini, Sawallisch, and Eschenbach. Fluent in Italian, German and French, she has coached both student and professional singers in foreign-language diction since 1980.