Top Articles from Theater & Stage Reviews

Right on the Money
SFO and SFCMF wrap up their seasons on high notes Singing Strings
The Chamber Music Festival’s opening week doesn’t disappoint Hell is Other Operas
SFO’s Hoffmann delivers a devilishly good spectacle A Perfect Debut
Pianist Inon Barnatan presents a riveting performance A Night at the Cinema
The opera noir adaptation of The Letter is deft and entertaining L�Amour to La Morte
Natalie Dessay shines in SFO’s La Traviata Do It for Dvorák
Amid a mixed week, a trio takes the lead. Das Musik
SFCMF’s exceptions are as good as the rule So Long, Farewell
SFR says adieu to a Santa Fe Opera and Chamber Music season full of talent Thank Heaven
SFO persists to take risks, thanks to its new-music policy

Tuesday, June 21,2011
Theater & Stage Reviews

Contemporaneous Celebrations

Wake up and happy birthday, music scene!

John Stege

Santa Fe’s contemporary music scene awakens from semi-hibernation with two important concerts this week. And they’re all about anniversaries.

Wednesday, April 13,2011
Theater & Stage Reviews

Through the Lens

Lensic affiliates share their views

Rani Molla

The Lensic theater space turns 80 this year and simultaneously celebrates 10 years since it became the nonprofit Lensic Performing Arts Center. The Lensic marks this milestone with the same varied arsenal of events it has wielded throughout its history.

Wednesday, September 1,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Right on the Money

SFO and SFCMF wrap up their seasons on high notes

John Stege

When audiences hum happily out of The Crosby Theatre after, say, a jolly evening with Albert Herring, or when they linger cheerily outside St. Francis Auditorium after, say, a rousing reading of Mendelssohn’s Octet, their immediate concerns probably aren’t dollars and cents.

Wednesday, August 25,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Joy Ride

SFCMF’s season departs with finesse and cheer

John Stege

The music stops, the audience jumps up, claps like mad, bravos crazily, whistles (don’t try this in France) and stomps its collective foot. That’s a standing ovation. That’s what met Yuja Wang as she rose from the piano after her demonic Aug. 17 noon recital.

Wednesday, August 18,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Battle Royal

SFCMF’s season is full of co-commissions and world premieres

John Stege

Cagey, brilliant composer-critic Virgil Thomson commented, “Criticism joins the history of its art only when it joins battle, for or against, with the music of its time.” Well, opportunities galore for battling with music of our time popped up in recent programs at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

Wednesday, August 11,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Any Haydn Sunday

SFCMF has gotten bigger and better-dressed

John Stege

Ever since the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s first season, those Sunday-evening concerts have been special. Back in 1973, six Sunday-evening programs were it, period, for festivalgoers. As time passed and plans grew, so did the number of concerts. Nowadays, that Sunday program gets a reprise on Monday evening, joined by plenty of other events scattered over the rest of the week.

Wednesday, August 4,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Das Musik

SFCMF’s exceptions are as good as the rule

John Stege

“Chamber music” can be an evasive term. Definitions tend to be slippery. Strict constructionists exclude the solo piano. Goodbye, too, to many of Mozart’s serenades and divertimenti; they’re meant for the outdoors.

Wednesday, August 4,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Well-Fed Herring

Albert Herring is stuffed to the gills with good cheer

John Stege

Comic opera hasn’t thrived over the last several dismal decades. Composers prefer to work the dark side. But fast-backward to July 1947 and the premieres of two comic survivors: Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias and Britten’s Albert Herring, which opened July 26 at the Santa Fe Opera.

Wednesday, July 28,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Do It for Dvorák

Amid a mixed week, a trio takes the lead.

John Stege

A touch of glamour opened the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s 38th season at St. Francis Auditorium last week, personified in Susan Graham, the festival’s first artist-in-residence, and Jake Heggie, the hot youngish composer whose operatic ventures have been popular success stories recently.

Wednesday, July 28,2010
Theater & Stage Reviews

Thank Heaven

SFO persists to take risks, thanks to its new-music policy

John Stege

If the Santa Fe Opera ever gets to heaven, and it surely shall, one of the reasons will be its obstinate policy of producing—grandly and expensively—new, challenging, important and sometimes awful operas of our time.