Violinist Jennifer Koh performs a solo recital in a park at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Photo by Sachyn Mital
“In Michigan Opera Theater’s ‘Twilight: Gods’—a drive-through abbreviation of Wagner imaginatively directed by Yuval Sharon, and unfolding on the levels on a parking garage [in Detroit]—Brünnhilde’s steed was a Ford Mustang, in which she sped off into the apocalypse,” writes Joshua Barone in Wednesday’s (10/21) New York Times. “ ‘Twilight: Gods’ radiated an inventiveness that, even in a normal year, would have made it one of the most inspired American opera productions of the season…. ‘Twilight: Gods’ also offers a way forward for performing arts institutions in the United States.… Where else could something like this be possible? … On Sunday … the New York Philharmonic gave its final Bandwagon pickup-truck, pop-up concert of the fall. The day before, I had heard the violinist Jennifer Koh in solo recital under the trees that run along the north side of the Metropolitan Opera … Bach’s Second Violin Sonata and short works from her pandemic-era commissioning initiative Alone Together…. Alone Together is a marvel for a time of crisis…. After the Bach [came] the alternately smooth and serrated melodies of Inti Figgis-Vizueta’s ‘Quiet City’; the bouncing wonder of Angélica Negrón’s ‘Cooper and Emma’; the modest comfort of Cassie Wieland’s ‘Shiner.’ ”
