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LLOYD SCHWARTZ

Latest Articles

Review: 'The Harry Partch Legacy' and the BSO season openers

At Symphony Hall, with its legendary warm and natural acoustics, the amplification created a distorted, directionless sound for the singers of Porgy and Bess .

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 03, 2012

Intermezzo's 'Diva Monologues'

John Whittlesey's feisty little Intermezzo chamber opera series has just entered its 10th season.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 25, 2012

Autumn's classical events

Adès time
The Boston Symphony Orchestra still has no music director, and has suffered for that absence.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 19, 2012

Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music: Part II

What's new
Oliver ("Olly") Knussen, who recently turned 60, has been a previous co-director of the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music (FCM) and in other years an active participant (in 2008, for example, he came to the rescue of the centennial tribute to Elliott Carter that James Levine planned but couldn't play a part in).

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | August 15, 2012

The Festival of Contemporary Music opens at Tanglewood

Old (and young) masters
Tanglewood's annual Festival of Contemporary Music , directed this year by the British composer/conductor and three-time Tanglewood Fellow Oliver Knussen, got off to a terrific start.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | August 16, 2012

Merce Cunningham at the ICA

American angels
When Merce Cunningham started his dance company in 1953, he was a major new force in American Art.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 27, 2012

Boston Midsummer Opera's Don Pasquale

Hearing vs. seeing
This year's Boston Midsummer Opera (at the Tsai Center through July 29) is Donizetti's very late (the 64th of his 66 operas) Don Pasquale , a musically inspired and humanly endearing bel canto comedy about the indiscretion of old age and the cruelty of youth.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 26, 2012

Admirable Nelsons; plus, Mark Morris

A leading contender excels at Tanglewood
At a top ticket price of $2500 (including a gourmet dinner), the gala concert celebrating the 75th anniversary of Tanglewood grossed a cool $1.42 million.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 18, 2012

Chopin symposium at the Rivers School

Chopiniana
The Rivers School Conservatory in Weston mounted an ambitious three-day Chopin symposium last weekend featuring lectures and performances by faculty members, former faculty members, and distinguished guests.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | June 20, 2012

Chorus pro Musica's Hadyn Creation

Let There Be Words
Haydn cared about words.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | June 05, 2012

BMOP and Mark Morris

Classical classics
As the Globe 's Jeremy Eichler pointed out in his review of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's season-ending concert — called "Apollo's Fire" — referring to the program note by the BSO's Assistant Director of Program Publications Robert Kirzinger, the term "classical music" has become so all-inclusive that it doesn't have much at all to do with ancient "classical" art.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 31, 2012

Very live at the Met

Higher definition
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about the Met in HD, the low-cost screenings of live Metropolitan Opera productions in movie theaters around the world.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 21, 2012

Haitink and the BSO, Zander and the BPO, the Emerson Quartet, the Vores Violin Concerto, and Donald Teeters’s farewell to Boston Cecilia

Plugged in
Sometimes you know it the minute you hear it, sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it never happens at all.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 08, 2012

The Metropolitan Opera live telecasts

High art in high definition
Given the high cost of productions and, therefore, the high price of tickets, opera companies have a hard time staying in business.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 08, 2012

Emmanuel’s late Mozart, NEC’s early Britten, BSO guest conductors, and Boston Lyric Opera’s The Inspector

Plus, Boston Conservatory’s The Apple Tree , Charles Strouse at Longy, and Helen Grime at the Gardner
By an odd coincidence, two recent events included two of Boston's best-loved singers in non-singing roles, artists who've been teamed in some of Boston's most memorable opera productions: baritone James Maddalena and soprano Susan Larson, essential members of the great Peter Sellars/Craig Smith stock company.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 24, 2012

NEC brings back Leon Kirchner’s Lily

Making a comeback
Leon Kirchner's Lily, wasn't the only opera to have a disastrous premiere (some now-indispensable Verdi and Puccini were opening-night failures).

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 04, 2012

Winsor Music, Schubertiade, BSO guest conductors, and the Handel and Haydn Society’s St. Matthew Passion

Thinking big
As the BSO season continues without a music director, each new conducting debutante (according to Webster's, usually refers to a woman) raises the larger question of who Boston's next major music director will be.