Philip Glass’s vision of hell has Orpheus and Eurydice being grilled about their love life by judges holding tea cups. It looks a lot like marriage counseling.
This probably wasn’t the point Glass wanted to get across in Orphée, presented this weekend by the Virginia Opera at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts. Glass wrote [...]
At a time when early music is a hot ticket for chamber groups (in D.C., see Bach Sinfonia and Opera Lafayette), it’s nice to know there are ensembles that are as devoted to new music. Around here, no one is more devoted than the 21st Century Consort. Since its 1975 founding, the group has cherry-picked the [...]
Balls of steel. That must be what compels Opera Lafayette to stage an 18th century comic opera in its original French, then take it on the road to France, with a cast that doesn’t really speak French.
Opera Lafayette is a top-notch historical ensemble from D.C., specializing in baroque and classical operas performed with period instruments. [...]
What does it take to be a superstar musician? Talent? Sure, but past a certain level, everyone’s got that. If they’re honest, the pros admit it takes a certain amount of showmanship, even in the staid world of classical music. Like any other performer, they have to cultivate a persona. And among classical musicians, the [...]
Ask your average American, even Latin American, what they think of Uruguay, and you’ll mostly get blank stares. Over the last century of political turmoil that plagued the rest of the continent, Uruguay was blessed with the reputation as South America’s most stable and boring democracy. Even their guerrillas were more snarky than revolutionary: The [...]
It’s the one that got away: Richard Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle, which the Washington National Opera has been trying to put on for a decade now. They got three-quarters of the way through, with Siegfried in 2009, before running out of money and losing the fourth installment to the San Francisco Opera.
Now, the dividends of [...]
“1/2 price wine and National Symphony Orchestra” read the sign outside of Acre 121, in that order. This leaves a slightly sad impression as to which of the two Acre’s manager thought would be the bigger draw. But whichever it was, the midscale BBQ restaurant was packed on Wednesday, the first night of the NSO’s [...]
Much like retail businesses, choral groups have a standard yearly schedule. They live a meager, hand-to-mouth existence 11 months of the year, but December is when they cash in. For the second in our annual series of holiday smackdowns!, Arts Desk offers a consumer report on Christmas concerts from two of our leading choral groups: [...]
If Terrence Jones wants to be remembered as anything, it's probably Treehugger-in-Chief of the arts. The president and CEO of the Wolf Trap Foundation, who recently announced that he will retire after 16 years, is a crusader for carbon neutrality, and he showcases Wolf Trap as a model for sustainable business practices.
But the foundation's board [...]
Pianist Jeremy Denk is an increasingly hot commodity on the classical music circuit. He’s performed as a soloist with orchestras from London to San Francisco, played alongside violinist Joshua Bell and under the baton of composer John Adams. He also maintains a blog that's become one of the most widely read in [...]
