Hector Berlioz

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Midsummer madness

Mark Morris, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Mozart in Boston, Meyerbeer at Bard
After a relatively quiet summer, I saw Boston Midsummer Opera's Cosí fan tutte at BU's Tsai Center. Then I raced out to Tanglewood for a Mark Morris program accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, a BSO matinee with Ma, and all six concerts in the annual Festival of Contemporary Music.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 29, 2009

French kiss

What we don't get in Boston
Productions I attended at the Opéra and Opéra Comique would be rare in New York, let alone Boston — though some of the performers would be familiar.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 10, 2009

Cracking the wise

Mamet’s Romance with ART; ASP’s Much Ado About Nothing
I don’t know that David Mamet’s is a fine Romance , and it certainly doesn’t conjure love at first scene.
By CAROLYN CLAY | May 20, 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

Noble melody

James Levine brings us Verdi's Simon Boccanegra ; plus Christian Tetzlaff and Leif Ove Andsnes
For the first time since James Levine became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, this acclaimed Verdi specialist conducted the BSO in a Verdi opera.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 03, 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

A song to sing, O!

Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO, Boston Early Music Festival's 17th-century chamber operas, the Bostonians' Yeomen of the Guard
Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO, Boston Early Music Festival's 17th-century chamber operas, the Bostonians' Yeomen of the Guard
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 02, 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

Letter from London

The foggy joys of Europe’s most international city
How could you not fall in love with this city?
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 05, 2008

Our bad

Letters to the Boston editor, May 30, 2008
As the Curator in Chief of the Museum of Bad Art, I would like to thank Ian Sands and the Boston Phoenix for the article about the opening of our new gallery in the Somerville Theatre.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | May 28, 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

Orpheus in the afterworld

Harbison and Mahler at the BSO, and the return of Dubravka Tomsic
Tomsic’s last Boston recital was four years ago. We can’t afford to be without her this long.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 22, 2008

Opera superstar 101

At 67, Plácido Dominingo makes his Boston concert Debut
Domingo put his arm around Martínez and whirled her around the stage, asking the audience to sing in their stead.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 17, 2008

Singers’ delight

Spring Arts Preview: Opera and vocal works lead the season
The season may be starting to wind down, but there remain some events music lovers have been waiting for all year.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 10, 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

Pass the Hollandaise

Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw at Symphony Hall, February 1, 2008
The first LP I ever bought, way back in 1963, offered Chopin’s E-minor piano concerto performed by obscure artists.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 30, 2009

Too much too soon?

Classical goodies for 2008
Two of the most exciting concerts announced for this winter are on the same date, February 24.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 31, 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

How it's done

Jonathan McPhee and the Longwood Symphony perform Beethoven's Ninth
The problem with the Ninth is that it gets played like a monument.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | October 10, 2007

Innocents abroad?

The BSO prepares to go on tour
Great symphony orchestras don’t just play at home.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | August 22, 2007

Orchestra in transition

Portland Symphony won’t see a new director until 2008
The Portland Symphony Orchestra sees light at the end of the tunnel.
By BEN MEIKLEJOHN | May 09, 2007

From Berlioz to Bayadère

The BSO and Boston Ballet announce 2007–2008
The czy ambiance at Symphony Hall made the announcement of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2007–2008 season seem like a family chat with James Levine.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 03, 2007

Damned good

Levine’s Berlioz and Wuorinen, Garrick Ohlsson’s Beethoven, the Borromeo’s Shostakovich, the Alloy’s Eagle
James Levine returned from his winter break with one of the most thrilling BSO concerts of his tenure: Berlioz’s “dramatic legend,” La damnation de Faust.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 20, 2007

Erwartung . . .

Classical goodies for 2007
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA music director James Levine will be back in February to continue his survey of Beethoven and Schoenberg with Metropolitan Opera diva Deborah Voigt in Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” and Schoenberg’s Erwartung (“Awaiting”), along with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Eighth Symphony (Symphony Hall, February 1-3).
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 28, 2006

Flirting with Beethoven

The seductive German is everywhere
It is said that Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) “got around.” Even today, the old dog arouses the interests of performers and seduces listeners.
By BEN MEIKLEJOHN | December 27, 2006

Stairway to Paradise?

Boston Ballet's Gala performance
It’s a mark of Mikko Nissinen’s ambitions for Boston Ballet that last night’s benefit Gala Performance at the Wang Theatre ended with such a défilé .
By JEFFREY GANTZ | October 26, 2006

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

1954–2006
We were very lucky, here in Boston, to have had so many chances to hear Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died in Santa Fe last Monday at the age of 52.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 11, 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

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