Craig Smith

Latest Articles

Feeding frenzy

The media rain on James Levine's parade, plus Boston Midsummer Opera
The media rain on James Levine's parade, plus Boston Midsummer Opera
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 03, 2010

BLO’s Idomeneo, BU’s Susannah, Garfein’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Zander’s Stravinsky, and Pollini’s Chopin
Much beautiful music turns up in the 18th-century operatic form that’s probably most alien to a modern audience.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 28, 2010

Snakebite

Opera Boston presents the world premiere of Madame White Snake; plus the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Boston Philharmonic
"I can no longer stand to let this travesty continue," sings a character in Madame White Snake , the new opera based on an ancient Chinese legend co-commissioned by Opera Boston, which has just presented its world premiere. I'm afraid I shared the sentiment at last Friday's performance.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 03, 2010

Creationists

Simon Rattle and the BPO, Fabio Luisi and the BSO, John Harbison and Emmanuel Music
Simon Rattle and the BPO, Fabio Luisi and the BSO, John Harbison and Emmanuel Music
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 18, 2009

In the swim

Guerilla Opera, von Stade’s farewell, the BSO, Handel and Haydn, the BPO, and that Tosca
My head’s swimming.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 14, 2009

The roar of the crowd

‘Opening Night at Symphony,’ Russell Sherman, the Discovery Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, and the Bostonians
I wasn’t there, but the opening-night dissatisfaction with the Met’s new Tosca was widely reported.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 13, 2009

Center of gravity

Shi-Yeon Sung and Nelson Freire at the BSO; plus the Schubertiade Music Players and Emmanuel's St. Matthew Passion
If all those young people at last Thursday's BSO concert didn't leave Symphony Hall feeling excited about classical music and eager to come back, then classical music is in even more trouble than I thought.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 14, 2009

Mad love

John Harbison's Winter's Tale, Dvorák's Rusalka, Hans Graf with the BSO, Mark Morris's music
The destructive power of jealousy makes a good subject for opera.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 24, 2009

Year in Classical: Celebrate!

Comings and goings
In Handel's Hercules, the demented Dejanira's loss is still so painful, I was afraid to listen; now I don't want to hear anything else.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 22, 2008

Isn’t it rich?

Sondheim and Follies , the BSO’s French evening, and Boston Baroque’s Xerxes
The biggest musical celebrity in town last week was Broadway great Stephen Sondheim, who filled Northeastern University’s Blackman Hall “in conversation” with his long-time associate, producer/composer Sean Patrick Flahaven.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 03, 2008

Russian, Spanish, American . . .

Music in all accents comes to the concert halls
What everyone is looking forward to this fall is the return to the podium of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 11, 2008

Grand finales

The Cantata Singers’ Weill retrospective, Mark Morris leading Dido , Chorus pro Musica’s Carmen
Jeffrey Rink has just ended his 18th and final season as music director of Chorus pro Musica. He’ll be missed.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | June 03, 2008

Altar and ego

Mark Morris’s Dido and Aeneas
Mark Morris’s Dido and Aeneas
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 30, 2009

Maestro!

Interview: Mark Morris picks up the baton
Next week, the Celebrity Series of Boston brings back Mark Morris’s dance setting of Henry Purcell’s 17th-century English opera Dido and Aeneas .
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 19, 2008

All over again

Brahms from Levine and Kissin, Emmanuel’s Bach B-minor Mass, the Cantata Singers’ Kurt Weill cabaret
The Boston Symphony Orchestra program for last week’s four concerts was a familiar one.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 28, 2010

Passion-less

Bernard Haitink and the BSO; Dominique Labelle with the Handel and Haydn Society
If the St. John Passion is Bach’s equivalent of lesser Shakespeare, the St. Matthew Passion is Bach’s King Lear.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 02, 2008

Great gifts

Julian Kuerti leads the BSO and Leon Fleisher, Stockhausen’s Mantra at Harvard, Emmanuel’s St. John Passion
Knussen’s interludes, barely seven minutes, are a complex but attractive mix of the seductively creepy and the intricately lively.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 12, 2008

‘A miracle!’

Emmanuel’s memorial for Craig Smith, plus Russell Sherman’s Bach, the Royal Concertgebouw, and Handel’s Semele
“Deep, tough, devout — and in church! It’s a miracle!”
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 05, 2008

Movie music

The BSO, Handel and Haydn, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Cantata Singers, David Daniels, and Teatro Lirico d’Europa’s Tosca
Classical music in 2008 Boston did not get off to a brilliant start.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 23, 2008

Love and loss

Classical: 2007 in review
Boston’s biggest classical-music story this year was also its saddest.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 18, 2007

Hot and cold

More French music plus Osvaldo Golijov at the BSO; Sarasa’s warm tribute to Craig Smith
James Levine’s second French program this season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was more compelling than the one with which he began the season.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 11, 2007

Craig Smith (1947–2007)

Boston loses a beloved musician
For more than 30 years, Emmanuel Music has been central to the cultural life of Boston.
By EDITORIAL | November 19, 2007

The art of . . .

Bach at Emmanuel, Boston Baroque’s Cosí fan tutte, Kiri Te Kanawa’s farewell to Boston
Craig Smith’s Emmanuel Music began its season with Bach, the composer it’s best known for.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 16, 2007

World music

The BSO goes traveling, and Berlin comes to Boston
There’s more to Boston’s classical music scene than the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 12, 2007

Double or nothing

Mark Morris revives Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Tanglewood; Cosí fan tutte on Beacon Hill
The American premiere of Dido took place here in Boston, at the Majestic Theatre in June 1989.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 03, 2007

NAScar-bon neutral?

Motor sports make an improbable environmentalist example
Anyone trying to get their minds around the complicated puzzles of greenhouse gases and global warming can learn a thing or two by watching how motor sports are adapting to the growing pressure to become eco-friendly.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | May 30, 2007

What’s in a phrase?

The Cantata Singers’ season finale; Leon Fleisher and the Emerson String Quartet
There are lots of references to heaven in Bach’s Passions and cantatas, but one of his most heavenly pieces has no words at all.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 22, 2007

Oh Susanna

Ailyn Pérez shines in BLO’s Figaro; so does Gabriela Montero with the Boston Philharmonic
Music director Stephen Lord conducts a Figaro that clocks in close to three and a half hours but so engaging, few people will be checking their watches.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 01, 2007

Contact!

Emmanuel Music’s Alcina , André Previn at the BSO, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra
Music lovers had a tough decision to make last Saturday between two great operas that are rarely performed here.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 24, 2007

Rise and fall

Opera Boston does Mahagonny; the BSO and the Boston Philharmonic do Sibelius
With its production of the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Opera Boston consolidates its position as this city’s most exciting opera company.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 13, 2007