East Village Opera Company, the opera-rock hybrid company, first attracted buzz in 2004 with its live performances at Joe’s Pub. Two members of the company, co-founder Tyley Ross and AnnMarie Milazzo are currently singing miked, rock-infused versions of arias like Lakme‘s Flower Duet, Verdi’s “La donne e mobile,” and Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” as [...]

After watching i get lost: An Evening of Solos (February 4-6), part of the platform curated by choreographer Ralph Lemon at Danspace Project, I wondered why more solos aren’t paired on programs. Then again, that’s part of the allure of this new series, to allow accomplished artists to juxtapose other unique artists in ways that [...]

Speaking with 28-year-old tenor Sean Panikkar, you get the feeling he could do pretty much anything he set his mind to. He shows virtually none of the stereotypical traits that tend to come to mind when we hear the word “tenor”—the extreme nerves, flightiness, vanity, and so forth. The onetime engineering student, who was a [...]

Lots of orchestras incorporate projected images of planets when they perform Holst’s The Planets, but not every orchestra’s hometown has jet propulsion labs and nearby rocket scientists as collaborators. So when I heard the Houston Symphony Orchestra was coming to Carnegie Hall on Thursday (Jan. 28) to play The Planets on January 28—with a new [...]

There’s an interesting, welcome trendlet happening in New York dance now—choreographers as curators. Danspace Project has engaged Ralph Lemon to curate i get lost (through February 6), the first of its “platforms” designed to elucidate a distinct artistic perspective and add contextualization; Juliette Mapp curates the second platform, Back to New York City (March 1-April [...]

Rob Kapilow, the composer featured in the documentary Summer Sun, Winter Moon to air January 31st on SundayArts, was commissioned by the St. Louis and Kansas City Symphonies and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to compose a symphonic work with a specific theme: a reflection of the enduring legacy of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Seeking [...]

Oh, the irony. One of this week’s better ticket values—the New York-based string quintet Sybarite5, which performed at the tiny Chelsea venue The Cell—brought me into one of New York’s most lush-feeling, upper-crusty spaces imaginable. For $20, on January 22 I sat in what felt like the front parlor of someone’s spacious, renovated nineteenth-century home, [...]

Call it a week with four Sundays. This past week at the Metropolitan Opera, Placido Domingo (who’s last name means “Sunday” in Spanish) performed in four of the company’s seven performances—a trick the superstar (and the last of the “Three Tenors” still singing opera) will repeat next week as well. He’s singing in a revival [...]

Large ballet companies are, by necessity, always in a state of transition, with young dancers being promoted and senior dancers retiring, often with great fanfare and wistfulness. But now, more than ever, it seems that New York City Ballet is top-heavy with principals—30 in all, versus 15 soloists. A rash of promotions has taken place [...]

Last Sunday, going stir crazy on a nasty rainy day, I took (dragged) my son and a friend of my daughter’s out to hear a woodwind quintet called PUFF! at South Orange Performing Arts Center in NJ ($10–15). The ensemble, in residence at Juilliard (an participants in the upcoming Focus! Festival, details after the jump), [...]