The ATOS Trio play Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio #1 at a concert given at Wigmore Hall, London, in 2018. The musicians are Annette von Hehn (violin), Stefan Heinemeyer (cello), and Thomas Hoppe (piano).
Watch and listen here.
It was a chance hearing of this work on the radio – many years ago – that got me hooked on chamber music.
On February 22nd, 1969, I saw my first RING opera: Herbert von Karajan conducting (and directing) RHEINGOLD at the Metropolitan Opera. The Maestro was to have been at the helm of the entire Cycle, but that did not come to pass. He had commenced his Met career with WALKURE in 1967, but a falling out with Sir Rudolf Bing prompted him to withdraw from SIEGFRIED and GOTTERDAMMERUNG.
On that February weekend in 1969 – the most thrilling weekend in all my opera-going experience – the RHEINGOLD matinee was book-ended by an all-star FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN the evening before and a kozmic TURANDOT – in the evening following the RHEINGOLD – wherein Birgit Nilsson sang the title role opposite Montserrat Caballe’s Liu.
The RHEINGOLD recently turned up on YouTube, but there’s no telling how long it will be available to hear; it’s great to be listening to it again, and to feel the excitement that the conductor and singers had kindled. Among a stellar cast, Anna Reynolds stepped in as Fricka for an ailing Josephine Veasey.
It is fantastic to be able to re-live this performance after so many years; listen here.
Above: MinSeon Kim and Cara McManus in Lydia Johnson’s ODE; photo by Christopher Duggan
~ Author: Oberon
Saturday June 20th, 2026 matinee – Lydia Johnson presenting her company of distinctive dancers in a program of four works – two premieres and two revivals – at New York Live Arts. At this afternoon’s performance, I had the enormous pleasure of sitting next to Deborah Wingert Arkin, high priestess of all things Balanchine…and a fascinating person in her own right.
The afternoon opened with one of the new works: EVENING. In four movements, the piece meshes music by three living composers – Lera Auerbach. Nico Muhly, and Ludovico Einaudi – with that of Paul Von Westhoff, which dates from 1694. As the lights come up, the ten dancers are standing in a circle; they begin to walk about, pausing from time to time to embrace; but the embraces are chaste: a feeling of decorum pervades the ballet. The sound of a siren fades away. Principal dancers Laura Di Orio and Oscar Antonio Rodriguez move to the Baroque enchantment of the Van Westhoff score; they are joined by fellow principals Cara McManus and Michael Miles. These four dancers follow thru with persuasive partnering to the Muhly score, though a simmering passion continues to be held under restraint. The Einaudi music brings an octet of women – Laura DiOrio and Cara McManus joined by principal MinSeon Kim and Catherine Gurr, Emily Sarkissian, Maia Culbreath, Emma Conrad, and Gracie Zytynski. Their movements are stylized, with sisterly gestures; a feeling of forlorn lyricism abounds. Ms. Di Orio and Mr. Rodriguez re-appear – later joined by the McManus/Miles duo – for some expert partnering. EVENING has a lovely ending, though an air of unspoken desires lingers. Throughout this atmospheric ballet – and indeed all evening – the lighting designs of Renée Molina were a key element to the visual appeal of the dancing.
LEGACY, which premiered in 2024, is a ballet about community – or, more specifically – about family. Bringing a quartet of children – Uma Thomas Asnani, Elise Boikess, Fiona Hartman, and Esme Hughes – into the narrative was a lovely touch, especially as these girls were thoroughly at ease and self-assured onstage. The adults – Mlles. Di Orio, McManus, Kim, Culbreath, Conrad, and Zytynski joined by Natalia Nikitin, and Mssrs. Miles and Rodriguez – worked wonders while dancing to Terry Riley’s wide-ranging, rhythmic score. LEGACY felt different today than it had when I saw it at the old Graham/Westbeth studio; it seemed darker – at times even a bit ominous – and the ending less potent.
Above: Lydia Johnson and composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, photo by Fiona Hartman
Following the interval, Lydia Johnson unveiled one of her most powerful works to date: ODE. Set to Aleksandra Vrebalov’s imaginative – and strangely appealing – Sea Ranch Songs, as recorded by the inimitable Kronos Quartet, this ballet – like LEGACY – is about a community of like-minded young citizens; it feels like a paean to freedom and peace. From some of the earliest rehearsals of the work – which I was able to watch – the choreography and the music developed an organic sense of the age we are living in.
In the ballet’s third movement, one of Lydia’s trademark male/male duets was beautifully danced by Michael Miles and Jamie Robinson, whilst MinSeon Kim and Cara McManus treated us to their expressive brand of lyricism.
The performance ended with Lydia’s joy-filled “red ballet”, UNDERCURRENT. The folkish rhythms of Henryk Górecki’s score literally scream: “Let’s dance!!” and that is exactly what the Company did. Joined by students from Lydia’s school – Lily Fitzgerald, Charlotte Grey, Fiona Hartman, Margot Heid, Juliette Malki. Leila Nobles, and Clara Wade – and by members of the LJD Student Company – Camilla Abbate, Camila Ayala, Moya Connolly, Pilar Diaz, Mia Frankenberg, and Marisa Nobles – and with the main company welcoming Bella Marlborough, Victoria Hollingsworth, Gabriel Sharp, and Gion Treichler – the stage was full of lively movement and unbridled joy.
Somehow, in this sea of swirling red skirts, it was Oscar Antonio Rodriguez who held the epicenter of the piece. Always an impressive figure when dancing for Cherylyn Lavagnino and Amanda Selwyn, Oscar has drawn upon his experience in musical theatre to develop a stage presence that is part poet and part leader of the pack. Watching him in UNDERCURRENT moving deftly and with purpose about the stage made me think of the famous chant of soccer fans in TED LASSO: “He’s here…he’s there…he’s every f__king where!”. Dancing for Lydia, Oscar has honed his partnering skills to perfection; watching him this afternoon was an exhilarating experience.
In the ballet’s central Andante cantabile, three duets and a solo put some of the Company’s most beautiful movers and shapers in high relief: principal Laura Di Orio was her usual luminous self, partnered by the tall and charismatic Gabriel Sharp. LJD principals MinSeon Kim and Michael Miles, a perfect pairing, brought forth a shared sense of caring that is a Lydia Johnson trademark. A match-up of long-limbed dancers – Catherine Gurr and Gion Treichler – brought poetic grace to their partnership. In a solo, Maia Culbreath was beauty personified.
Lydia’s “red ballet” moves on to its grand finale as some two-dozen dancers sped about the space in various groupings to Maestro Górecki’s fascinating rhythms. The performance ended brilliantly, with Laura DiOrio poised aloft by her cavaliers. The packed house, which had been pin-drop silent throughout the dancing, erupted in a vigorous ovation.
~ Oberon
The beloved Bulgarian soprano Raina Kabaivanska sings the Ave Maria from Verdi’s OTELLO at a concert given at Lugano, Switzerland, in 1987. The Orchestra della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana is led by Nino Bonavolontà.
Watch and listen here.
Latonia Moore sings Maddalena’s “La mamma morta” from Giordano’s ANDREA CHENIER at a concert honoring the 75th Anniversary of the Academy of Vocal Arts. The concert took place on March 31st, 2010, in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Christopher Macatsoris conducts the AVA Opera Theater Orchestra.
Watch and listen here.
The inimitable Spanish mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza sings Cleopatra’s lament, “Piangerò la sorte mia“, from Handel’s GIULIO CESARE.
Listen here.
From the Canadian Pavilion at Montréal’s Expo ’67, tenor Richard Verreau (above) and pianist John Newmark are heard in a recital that took place on July 22, 1967.
Listen here.
In 1963. the tenor was my first Faust at the Old Met, stepping in for Barry Morell.
Contralto Louise Parker and bass-baritone Geroge London are the soloists in a 1946 performance of Paul Hindemith’s “When Lilacs last in the Dooryard bloom’d: a Requiem For those we love“, a setting of the Walt Whitman poem. The Schola Cantorum of New York – directed by Hugh Ross – and the New York Philharmonic are under the composer’s baton.
Listen here.
Above: Roseanna Leney as Mary Stuart and Harvey Littlefield as Elizabeth II; photo courtesy of Scottish Ballet
~ Author: Oberon
Sunday June 7th, 2026 matinee – Mary Stuart has been with me for a long time. As my miserable high school years drew to their end, and tired of reading boring books assigned by my various English teachers, I went to the nearest bookstore in Oswego, New York, and bought two biographies. One was of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the other was Antonia Fraser’s classic bio of Mary, Queen of Scots.
I found Mary’s life infinitely more interesting than Napoleon’s. This favoring of women’s life stories would hold true over many years; biographies of Isadora Duncan, Renata Tebaldi, Cosima (and Winifred) Wagner, Lydia Sokolova, Mathilde Wesendonck, Gelsey Kirkland, Misia Sert, Dame Janet Baker, and Janis Joplin are still on my shelf, whereas only Balanchine, Diaghilev, and Richard Wagner represent my male idols. I’ve got the Fraser biography here next to me as I write this.
Long ago, I fell in love with Donizetti’s opera about the tragic Scots Queen, MARIA STUARDA, which is built around a fictitious meeting between Mary and her Tudor cousin, Elizabeth II of England. Ever suspicious of the Catholic Mary, Good Queen Bess imprisoned Mary, who had fled rebellion in Scotland and incautiously chosen England over France (where she was already Dowager Queen) as a place of refuge. In the ensuing long years, Mary was ever a thorn in Elizabeth’s Protestant side; in the end, Mary was found guilty of encouraging a plot to rescue her from her prison. Mary, Queen of Scots, was 44 years old when she was executed on February 8th, 1587, at Fotheringhay Castle. Elizabeth later claimed that she had been tricked into signing the death warrant by her secretary, who had conveniently hidden the warrant in a stack of routine documents needing the Queen’s signature.
Irony of ironies: when Elizabeth died childless, she named – on her deathbed – Mary Stuart’s son, King James VI of Scotland, as her heir. He became James I of England; every British monarch since the 17th century can trace their descent back to him. This lends meaning to one of Mary Stuart’s final musings: “In my end is my beginning.”
I apologize for the preceding detour from the matter at hand: the Scottish Ballet’s MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
Choreographed by Sophie Laplane to a musical score by Mikael Karlsson and Michel P. Atkinson, with sets and costumes by Sutra Gilmour, lighting by Bonnie Beecher, and projections and visuals by Anouar Brissel. The production is directed by co-creator James Bonas.
Looking thru some production photos prior to attending this matinee, I wondered how (and how much) of Mary Stuart’s story could be told in a two-hour dancework. Two men who loomed large in Mary’s life once she returned to Scotland following the death of her first husband, the dauphin (and, briefly, king) of France, were not named among the ballet’s characters: the fiery opponent of Catholicism in Scotland, John Knox, whose public attacks on Mary deeply troubled her, and the madman Lord Bothwell, Mary’s third husband, who caused Mary’s fall from grace with her people, and her eventual flight from her homeland.
Elizabeth had sent her favourite, the dashing and spirited Lord Darnley, to Scotland, to court Mary; the young queen succumbed to his charms, married him, and thus gave Elizabeth a tighter leash on her cousin. Darnley was both jealous of, and intrigued by, David Rizzio, Mary’s Italian court musician. The two men reputedly had an affair, and Darnley’s jealousy of Mary’s apparent infatuation Rizzio brought about the musician’s violent death. When Darnley later fell ill and was quarantined in a small house near the castle, he was himself murdered in a gun-powder blast which, some say, was master-minded by Mary herself. In the ballet, Darnley and Rizzio have a passionate pas de deux. Another set of historically correct characters, the “Four Marys” who were the queen’s constant companions, are included in the story-telling.
Above: Mary Stuart and the Four Marys
We arrived at the theatre to find that they had run out of program booklets. Luckily, I had received the necessary casting information in advance from the publicist, but people sitting near us were left in the dark as to details of the narrative and who was dancing which role.
The physical production was both grandly stark and imaginatively lit. I was glad to find the story-telling (mostly) clear and accurate. So many incidents from Mary’s life that I thought might be glossed over were etched into the staging; details of her execution – the three warning cannon-shots, and her red petticoat (here, a bikini!) as a sign of her martyrdom – were rightfully included, though (mercifully) her final agony was not shown: the executioner had missed his mark on the first blow, extending her suffering as he hacked her head off.
Above: Mary Stuart (Roseanna Leney) and her courtiers; photo by Alex Ross
The Scottish Ballet’s dancers were very well-cast: Roseanna Leney as Mary was ideal – especially as fate closed in on her – as were Nicol Edmonds as Darnley and Bruno Micchiardi as Rizzio. The two men engaged convincingly in a torrid love/sex duet; later, the murder of Rizzio was depicted in all its merciless chaos. Charlotta Ofverholm made a strong impression as the “Old” Elizabeth; as her more youthful counterpart, Harvey Littlefield strode about convincingly on stilts. Court jesters are often annoying – I think it’s part of their job description – and Kayla-Maree Tarantolo, in a chartreuse frock and pointy hat, played her busybody role out to perfection. Meanwhile, a child with his name “James” emblazoned on his shirt, wandered haplessly about, unaware of what the future held for him.
Adding immensely to the power and persuasiveness of the performance was the score by Mikael Karlsson and Michel P. Atkinson. Allusions to dance rhythms and instrumentations of the Tudor period kept us engaged; the music and the drama were ideally entwined, making the afternoon pass by with a mixture of vivid urgency and somber severity that proved compelling.
Whether or not the audience – wonderfully silent and attentive – were able to understand what they had just experienced without the help of a printed program, it seemed not to matter: the applause was loud and long, the dancers rightfully cheered.
In December, Mary Stuart will be back at Lincoln Center when The Met gives the Donizetti opera with my beloved friend Lisette Oropesa in the title-role.
(Performance photos courtesy of Scottish Ballet)
~ Oberon
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Scottish mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor came unto my radar at the 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, where her singing captivated me.
In May of 2025, I got to see her live in a concert performance of Handel’s GIULIO CESARE at Carnegie Hall; l was bowled over by her strikingly beautiful timbre and her lovely stage presence.
Listen to Beth singing Elgar’s Sea Pictures with pianist Hamish Brown here.
Oberon's Glade 