The New York Times’s classical music and opera critics see and hear much more than they review. Here is what has hooked them recently. Leave your own favorites in the comments.
‘The Comet/Poppea’
About 30 seconds into this excerpt, Monteverdi’s 17th-century “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” begins to fracture and dissolve, swiftly overcome by another score: George Lewis’s anxiously brooding new opera “The Comet.” The mash-up is called “The Comet/Poppea,” and it was performed last month as part of the American Modern Opera Company’s residency at Lincoln Center.
Played on a rotating set divided in half, the production blurred the boundaries between Monteverdi and Lewis, and often had the two pieces sing out simultaneously. The director, Yuval Sharon, said in a program note that the idea of playing different works at once had been inspired, in part, by his staging of John Cage’s “Europeras 1 & 2.” “The Comet/Poppea” was more of a baffling trudge than an ecstatic Cagean explosion, but it has lingered in my mind — particularly “The Comet,” based on a W.E.B. DuBois story about a Black man who survives an apocalyptic event. Lewis’s music flickers nervously and the vocal lines, powerfully sung by Kiera Duffy and Davóne Tines, artfully convey the stunned memories and confessions of a mismatched pair of shellshocked New Yorkers. It’s a resonant parable of racial exclusion but, for me, also suggested the specter of Sept. 11. ZACHARY WOOLFE
‘Ghost Quartet’
It’s difficult to label the brilliant music of Dave Malloy, which often falls under the broad umbrella of musical theater but freely dabbles in genre and style, and, in the case of “Ghost Quartet,” more like art song than anything: a cycle in the tradition of Schubert and the Romantics, if they were writing for a rock band. Above all his music, regardless of categorization, is just good.
The presenter Death of Classical brought the piece’s original foursome of singer-instrumentalists to Green-Wood Cemetery last weekend to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “Ghost Quartet,” against a fitting backdrop of an ominously dark sky and leaning gravestones. They were all in top form: Malloy’s bright vocals and expressive finger work on keyboards; Brittain Ashford’s husky and Gelsey Bell’s honeyed sounds; Brent Arnold’s mastery across string instruments.
Bell, as if to prove Malloy’s genre-shattering artistry, is also a regular in contemporary music, whether as a composer or a performer reviving operas by Robert Ashley. You can hear her gift for sometimes shocking extended technique in “The Photograph.” On the word “ghost,” her voice shoots upward then plunges, pointillistic then creaking. From there, she gently caresses phrases, teases operatic vibrato and lets out a shriek and a screech that will chill as much as it awes you. JOSHUA BARONE
Yunchan Lim
Some of us weren’t lucky enough to be in Fort Worth in 2022, when a South Korean teenager made Van Cliburn Piano Competition history. Yunchan Lim became the competition’s youngest winner with a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 that had uncommon poetry and jaw-dropping bravura. Since then, it has been possible to experience the concert on YouTube. If comments are to be believed, many superfans have made watching it a daily ritual.
Now, Decca’s release of the live cut confirms Lim’s interpretation as one of the most coherent, poetic and exciting recordings of this monumental concerto. With smartly cleaned-up audio, the uncannily warm interaction between the young soloist and the galvanized Fort Worth Symphony, under the direction of Marin Alsop, comes through wonderfully. From the subdued opening, it is clear that Lim is a storyteller with a sure sense of pacing. Even the melancholy is contained in this first statement of the theme. Before long, Lim storms into the contrapuntal thicket of Rachmaninoff’s score, bringing dazzling clarity to complex textures. But even at the stormiest tempos he wards off motion blur by bringing out unexpectedly moving small details: a fragment of a descending tenor line rendered with the faintest delay, chiseled middle voices, a group of repeated notes clanged out like alarm bells. It’s a wonder. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Galina Cheplakova
I was prepared and excited to see Sonya Yoncheva as Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades” at the Metropolitan Opera last month. Hours before I attended the June 4 performance, however, Yoncheva withdrew because of illness. Galina Cheplakova, a 39-year-old Russian soprano, took Yoncheva’s place and made her Met debut.
It’s every singer’s dream to perform a lead role at one of the world’s major opera houses, planned or otherwise. But Cheplakova wasn’t just some soprano stepping in for her more-famous colleague. She gave a performance that I felt lucky to witness. Cheplakova is agile and graceful as a singer and actress, with impressive technical control over her gorgeous instrument. And what stamina, as she showed no signs of fatigue by the time her character (spoiler alert!) flings herself into the Winter Canal in the final act. Cheplakova showed a wide variety of tones throughout, which was best executed in her Act III aria “Akh! istomilas ya goryem.” Her voice — silvery and piercing at the top of her register, plummy and sweet at the bottom — is sumptuous. ARYA ROSHANIAN
Sviatoslav Richter
The perceptive critic Jed Distler once referred to Sviatoslav Richter as “the Grateful Dead of pianists” because of the cult following of fans who captured many of his concerts on tape. The ensuing abundance of recordings may make you wonder whether there is anything new to be learned about this legendary Russian pianist. Even so, I’ve found the four Beethoven sonatas heard in these recently rediscovered recordings from 1965 irresistible.
Here is Richter at the height of his abilities, powering through these works with a distinctive combination of rhythmic propulsion and oceanic tone. If he misses some of the impish humor of Sonata No. 18, his explosive power and all-but-note-perfect pianism in the faster movements will leave you astonished. Do the openings of Nos. 27 and 28 plod just a bit? Perhaps, but the resulting clarity and balance of voices is well worth slowing down for.
Beethoven’s penultimate sonata, in a recording from a festival that the pianist established in a barn in Tours, France, is perfectly paced and played with such glorious lyricism that even its odd moments — such as the slow tempo in the scherzo — seem like they could be no other way. Richter once said it was the only piece he played “without really wanting to.” You would never know. DAVID WEININGER
Joshua Barone is the assistant classical music and dance editor on the Culture Desk and a contributing classical music critic.
Zachary Woolfe is the classical music critic of The Times.
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