By Charles Michener 4/25/05 12:00am

New Voices, Slimmer Voigt Conspire to Lift the Met

In terms of box office, the season has not been satisfying at the Metropolitan Opera. Sold-out new productions of The Magic Flute and Rodelinda notwithstanding, overall attendance still hasn’t bounced back from 9/11, which made stay-at-homes of Met lovers in Japan, Europe and the rest of the United States. As the 2004-5 season enters the Read More

By Charles Michener 10/25/04 12:00am

Deeper, Riskier Magic Flute A Triumph of Sinister Thrills

Julie Taymor’s staging of The Magic Flute is the Metropolitan Opera’s finest theatrical achievement in years. During the past decade, the company’s new productions have lurched between industrial fussiness (Herbert Wernicke’s Die Frau ohne Schatten), chilly mannerism (Robert Wilson’s Lohengrin) and creaky bravado (most of the revamped Verdi operas). But in putting Mozart’s crowning masterpiece Read More