Posts Tagged ‘houston grand opera’

What went wrong?

Friday, December 9th, 2011

By James Jorden

After putting off for a week trying to make some sense of the horrific mess that is the Met’s new Faust, I’m finally just going to give up. There are some disasters that bear writing about as what you might call teaching opportunities: this season’s Don Giovanni, for example, as a cautionary tale about the perils of timid conservatism. But there’s nothing to be learned from this Faust besides, perhaps, “never hire Des McAnuff to direct another opera under any circumstances.”  (more…)

Nixon in Amber

Friday, February 4th, 2011

By James Jorden

It’s not hard to guess why Peter Gelb would choose to import a recreation of the original production of Nixon in China instead of devising a new staging from scratch. It would hardly be prudent to blow a million dollars on a six-performance run of a work unlikely to be revived any time soon, and surely the Met’s General Manager felt he should offer an olive branch to Peter Sellars after the snub of Dr. Atomic.

On the other hand, if I wanted someone sensible and kind running the Met, I wouldn’t have voted for Peter Gelb. (more…)