Category Archives: Theater
Jonas Kaufmann Will No Longer Sing in London or New York
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th December 2025Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann recently announced that he would no longer appear at Covent Garden in London and at the Met in New York. It’s been more than seven years since he last appeared at the Met, and that was after a four year absence. Kaufmann expressed dissatisfaction with how the Met treated its chorus…
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Astor Opera House Riot
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd June 2025I’ve just written about massacres that are depicted in opera. Here’s a real massacre that happened in front of a New York City opera house. The date was May 10, 1849, the theater was the Astor Place Opera House. I briefly mentioned it in an earlier post. The riot resulted in as many as 32…
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Il Trovatore in Salzburg 2014
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th September 2014Last Month Verdi’s opera was staged at the Grosses Festspielhaus. The performance of August 15 was telecast. If you have a subscription to medici.tv you can watch it at your leisure. I just got around to viewing it. Alvis Hermanis’ production is another on the ever growing list of those that are best viewed from behind a…
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Thoughts On The Puccini Sesquicentennial
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th December 2008Much of the July 2008 issue of Opera News is devoted to Giacomo Puccini who was born in 1858. Anybody who loves the composer’s operas, which is anyone who has ever heard them and who is not a terminal snob, will enjoy reading the articles analyzing various components of Puccini’s amazing ability with melody and…
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Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll in San Francisco
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th September 2008Tom Stoppard’s newest Play Rock and Roll is having its first west coast performances at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. It covers the years 1968 to 1990 from the perspective of Jan a graduate student at Cambridge who returns to his native Czechoslovakia after the Soviets crushed the “The Prague Spring” in 1968….
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