David Kravitz

Latest Articles

Tod Machover's Death and the Powers, plus Norrington's C.P.E. Bach and the Cantata Singers' B-minor Mass

Robotics
In her director's note for the American premiere of Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera , Diane Paulus, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, wrote that this "work of music-theater . . . has brought together artists from the widest range of disciplines — from theater and film to modern dance and the cutting-edge technology of the MIT Media Lab."
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 25, 2011

Blythe spirit

Opera Boston’s Offenbach, Thomas Quasthoff, the BSO, Boston Baroque, and BU’s Sondheim
Leaving the Cutler Majestic after the opening night of Opera Boston’s latest Offenbach, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein , you could see the smiling faces of an audience that had had a good time.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 17, 2010

Ye gods!

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

Right Click

Conservatives have ruled radio and liberals have dominated the net; but as the Red Mass Group's rise demonstrates, the left's Web supremacy is hardly a sure bet.
Back in February 2007, a few months after a political neophyte named Deval Patrick cruised to victory in the Massachusetts governor's race with help from a political blog named Blue Mass Group (BMG) — which whipped up pro-Patrick sentiment while aggressively rebutting the governor-to-be's critics — I sized up a recent conservative entry in the local blogosphere.
By ADAM REILLY | February 19, 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

Here comes the bride

Opera Boston's Smetana, the BSO's Berlioz, and Dawn Upshaw
It's been a long time since Bostonians had the chance to see the most popular Czech opera, Bedrich Smetana's The Bartered Bride , but Opera Boston followed its electrifying run of Shostakovich's The Nose with this tuneful folk opera and gave it a sweet and very likable production.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 12, 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

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Woof!

The BSO’s Carmina burana, the Cantata Singers, the Boston Camerata, and BLO’s Tales of Hoffmann
Probably most music lovers wouldn’t head their greatest-composer list with Carl Orff, despite the popularity of his violent, garish, sumptuously tuneful Carmina burana .
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 13, 2008

Magic bullets

Maurizio Pollini returns to the BSO; Opera Boston’s Der Freischütz
Last week’s Boston Symphony Orchestra program looked odd on paper, but the concert was a knockout.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 24, 2008

It’s about time . . .

The Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music starts in Boston
It’s been 17 years since Boston’s last local festival of contemporary music, the New Music Harvest organized by composer Charles Fussell: 19 programs (several free), a celebration of composer Ned Rorem, an opera production performed by BU students, and the participation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 25, 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

Epic undertaking

Berlioz’s Les Troyens at the BSO; Opera Boston attempts Verdi’s Ernani
The act four sequence of quintet, septet, and love duet is non-stop musical orgasm.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 12, 2008

Communication breakdown

How did Deval Patrick's greatest strength become a dangerous weakness?
You campaign in poetry, Mario Cuomo famously claimed, but you govern in prose. Don’t buy the dichotomy.
By ADAM REILLY | April 24, 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

The marriage of Heaven and Hell

Levine’s Schubert and Bolcom, Boston Baroque’s King Arthur, Jan Curtis
It’s been a joy to see James Levine back on the Symphony Hall podium, with his admirable combination of vitality and sensitivity.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 07, 2008

Stepping stones

Tudor and Limón at Boston Conservatory
The dance is large and sweeping, the music (by an unnamed recorded chorus and organist) majestic.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | February 25, 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

That’s what he said

Barack Obama sounds just like Deval Patrick. Is that good or bad?
More than any other presidential candidate, Barack Obama owes his success to sheer rhetorical power.
By ADAM REILLY | January 17, 2008

Flying high

Kurt Weill in Stow; Ziegler and Lima sing Mahler
Cantata Singers director David Hoose must feel that Weill’s music is more timely than ever.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 26, 2007

The strange dust-up over ‘Beat the Press’

Do you love me?
In case you missed it — and you probably did — a very small segment of the Massachusetts media was aflame with controversy this week.
By ADAM REILLY | December 13, 2006

Too much information?

Revisiting the Globe ’s gang-truce scoop. Plus, Deval Patrick scolds the media, and the problem with Blue Mass Group’s success.
It’s not often that the Globe makes the Herald look restrained, but it happened earlier this month.
By ADAM REILLY | December 07, 2006

Debating pointers

Advice to local TV stations
Well, folks, Fox 25 certainly set the bar with its debate broadcast Monday night, don’t you think? So with that in mind, here are some helpful hints for the bake-offs to come. Blue Mass Group's anti-Healey ad (YouTube) Christy Mihos's Big Dig TV ad
By JOHN CARROLL | September 27, 2006

Sweet tooth

Boston Lyric Opera imports The Little Prince , the BSO premieres Yehudi Wyner’s piano concerto, and Renée Fleming
I hope the estate of Leonard Bernstein is collecting royalties for The Little Prince . Rachel Portman’s unremittingly sweet and relentlessly lilting score for this children’s opera based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous story borrows heavily from Bernstein’s Candide and West Side Story .
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 19, 2006

Variety show

James Levine at the BSO, Ewa Podles, Gunther Schuller’s jazz, Ben Zander’s Elgar, Russell Sherman’s Mozart, Opera Boston’s Chabrier, Boston Baroque’s Purcell
James Levine completed his second season as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director with another riveting though not-quite polished evening of Schoenberg and Beethoven.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 08, 2006