Working with Bernstein: A Memoir by Jack Gottlieb. Amadeus Press, 370 pages, $24.99.
Reviewed by Caldwell Titcomb
A strong case can be made that the late Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was the all-round greatest musician our country has produced—virtuoso pianist, composer of both classical and popular music, the most charismatic conductor of his century, acclaimed educator and lecturer, [...]

Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb
Opera Boston is winding up its season with a delightful production of Jacques Offenbach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867). This operetta, one of more than 100 of Offenbach’s works for the music stage, followed closely after three of his most accomplished contributions: La Belle Hélène (1864), Barbe-Bleue (1866), and La Vie Parisienne [...]

Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb
I was not able to catch Ariadne auf Naxos until the last of six performances that the Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) presented at the Shubert Theatre. By this time everything was clicking superbly—both the singers and the instrumentalists in the pit. What we got was a production that the BLO imported from [...]

Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) by Alexander Zemlinsky. Libretto by George Klaren, based on Oscar Wilde’s “The Birthday of the Infanta.” Staged by OperaHub at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, through March 13. Free
Reviewed by Helen Epstein
For a truly worthwhile evening of music drama—free admission no less—get yourselves to the Boston Center for [...]

Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb
The Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) initiated this week what it calls Opera Annex by moving out of its usual venue for its production of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw. The site chosen was the Park Plaza Castle, built in 1891 as a Boston armory.
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By Caldwell Titcomb
The Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is currently offering Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” his last completed and finest opera, which had its delayed and unsuccessful premiere in 1875. According to Opera America, “Carmen” ranks No. 4 in the list of most performed works from the 1880s to 2005, surpassed only by Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
Oct 4: Celebrated mezzo-soprano Frederika von Stade gives her farewell Boston performance to inaugurate the Celebrity Series’ new season. Also sharing the spotlight will be the famed soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Symphony Hall, 3:00 p.m.
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By Caldwell Titcomb

In “The Bartered Bride,” Jennifer Aylmer plays Marenka, who loves the farmhand Jenik, but is pressured to marry Vasek, the son of a wealthy neighbor.
Boston has had the unusual luck of experiencing two major Czech operas within a few weeks. First, the Boston Lyric Opera gave us Antonin Dvořák’s “Rusalka” (see [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
Czech opera is not often mounted in these parts. The two major composers were Bedrich Smetana (1824-84) and Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). The latter wrote ten operas, some comic and some tragic. Among Czech natives, the palm goes to the latter’s “Rusalka,” the composer’s penultimate opera, written in 1900.

The Wood Sprites (mezzo-soprano Emily [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb

The scientist Spalanzani (tenor Neal Ferreira) strikes an unlikely deal with the nefarious inventor Coppélius (baritone Gaétan Laperrière) in the BLO’s fine production of “Tales of Hoffmann.”
One of history’s most famous and beloved French operas wasn’t written by a native Frenchman. “The Tales of Hoffmann” came from the pen of Jacques Offenbach (1819-80), [...]