Zachary Woolfe

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

Music|Review: ‘The Comet/Poppea’ Merges Opera’s Past and Presenthttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/arts/music/the-comet-poppea-review.htmlYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. A Monteverdi masterpiece and a new work by George Lewis are played simultaneously in an American Modern Opera Company production at Lincoln Center.

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

The classical music industry valorizes sweeping range, favoring artists whose programs cross centuries. But the magisterial pianist Alfred Brendel, who died on Tuesday at 94, was of the old school, focusing his long career on a small number of canonical composers from the same era: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. He nurtured their works with almost spiritual diligence, performing and reperforming, recording and rerecording.

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Joshua Barone |Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim |Zachary Woolfe

‘Salome’Those looking for the full, lurid grandeur of Strauss’s “Salome” could find it this spring in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera. But in February, the scrappy company Heartbeat Opera pre-empted the Met with a thrillingly pared-down version, putting the audience just feet from the action and reducing a huge orchestra to two percussionists and an octet of clarinetists who played a total of 28 instruments, including a handful of saxophones.

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

Critic's NotebookBirds joined in for the blissed-out sounds of concerts organized by the adventurous flutist Claire Chase at the Ojai Music Festival in California. Critic's NotebookBirds joined in for the blissed-out sounds of concerts organized by the adventurous flutist Claire Chase at the Ojai Music Festival in California. Credit... A crowd had gathered at the Ojai Meadows Preserve early Saturday morning.

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

Credit... By Metropolitan Opera Memorable performances included a pair of Strauss operas, a suave villain, a star soprano in "Fidelio" and a new conductor in "Le Nozze di Figaro."Credit... By Metropolitan Opera There were some great shows at the Metropolitan Opera this season. I went three times to a vividly grim new production of Strauss's "Salome" and to a revival of his sprawling "Die Frau Ohne Schatten," and I would have happily returned to either one.