James Maddalena

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

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

Contertizing

From Don Giovanni’s hell to Haydn’s Creation
Boston Lyric Opera follows up Dvorák’s moonstruck Rusalka, with Christopher Schaldebrand in the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the BSO and much more.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 20, 2009

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

‘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

Transfigured nights

The BSO’s Schoenberg and Beethoven; Boston Baroque’s Don Giovanni; Opera Boston’s La clemenza di Tito
James Levine and the BSO resumed their Beethoven/Schoenberg series with superb performances of two pieces at the opposite ends of the Schoenberg spectrum.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 24, 2006

Making it new

Ballet mécanique in Washington, the Callithumpians’ Xenakis, Mark Morris in New York and Boston, Yo-Yo Ma at the BSO, Harbison’s But Mary Stood
The avant-garde ain’t what it used to be.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 21, 2006

Us, writ large

Mark Morris’s L’Allegro
Mark Morris’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato is a dance as big as its name, as big as its illustrious associates and enablers, George Frideric Handel, John Milton, William Blake, and a contemporary galaxy of dancers, musicians, and designers.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | January 24, 2006