Tag Archives: opera

On Stage: Heaven and Hell: The Passenger

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  The Passenger An opera by the late Mieczyslaw Weinberg based on a radio play by Zofia Posmysz, libretto by Alexander Medvedev. As part of New York City’s Lincoln Center festival, the opera was performed by the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, conducted by Patrick Summers, staged at the Park Avenue Armory, a grand venue. The Passenger is about heaven and hell. In heaven, one is aboard a ship bound for Brazil. Passengers walk the deck, drink, dance. All is white: the people, their clothes, the band, their instruments. All is pure until it is divulged … Walter is a German … Continue reading →

314. Opera: Dr. Atomic: John Adams: The Metropolitan Opera, NYC

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Dr. Atomic premiered in San Francisco in 2005. From the Met Playbill: “This monumental contemporary opera is a riveting examination of one of the most significant episodes in world history: the events leading up to the testing of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico in 1945. Like composer John Adams’s previous operas Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, doctor Atomic not a reenactment of a historical moment but rather an exploration of the people, personalities, and issues involved in an epic incident. The focus of the piece is the title character, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the cultivated American … Continue reading →