Zachary Woolfe

United States

Classical Music Critic at The New York Times

classical music critic, nytimes

Articles

The Classical Music Our Critics Can't Stop Thinking About

6 days ago | nytimes.com | Joshua Barone |Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim |Zachary Woolfe |Oussama Zahr

Watch and listen to five recent highlights, including Metropolitan Opera performances, the posthorn solo in Mahler's Third and music by Tomeka Reid. 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. Performed by Alexander Vinogradov at the Metropolitan Opera. For an opera lover seeking a bit of escapist fun, Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" seems like a safe bet.
Pierre Audi, Eminent Force in the Performing Arts, Dies at 67

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

After turning a derelict lecture hall into the daring Almeida Theater, he had a long career as a director and impresario in Europe and New York. Pierre Audi, the stage director and impresario whose transformation of a derelict London lecture hall into the cutting-edge Almeida Theater was the opening act in a long career as one of the world's most eminent performing arts leaders, died on Friday night in Beijing. He was 67.
Strauss's 'Salome' Gets a New Staging at the Metropolitan Opera

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

In his company debut, the director Claus Guth takes a psychological approach, surrounding the title character with six versions of her younger self. The first sound in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of "Salome" isn't the wriggle of clarinet that begins Strauss's score. It's the tinkle of a music box, while a little girl plays with a doll at the lip of the stage. Projected on the curtain behind her is a giant image of herself, slowly twirling.
Yunchan Lim Plays Bach's 'Goldberg' Variations at Carnegie Hall

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

The 21-year-old pianist turned the great set of variations into the story of a young man's maturation from innocence to experience. Yunchan LimNYT Critic's Pick The gentle Aria at the start of Bach's "Goldberg" Variations can be inward looking, aching with loneliness. But in the pianist Yunchan Lim's hands, on Friday at Carnegie Hall, the music sounded brisk and bright.
Los cantos gregorianos del funeral del papa Francisco

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

El papa Francisco rompía a menudo con la tradición, pero la música de su funeral no lo intenta. Si bien los compositores de todas las épocas, desde Palestrina hasta Mozart y Andrew Lloyd Webber, han escrito elaboradas adaptaciones de la liturgia católica, es una antigua costumbre que la misa principal del funeral de un papa se cante en su mayor parte en gregoriano.
As New York's Opera Scene Empties, Another Rises Upstate

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

R.B. Schlather's vibrant staging of Handel's "Giulio Cesare," playing in the Hudson Valley, is a bright spot in a bleak landscape for Baroque work. Giulio CesareNYT Critic's Pick New York City Opera had recently shuttered when the director R.B. Schlather started to present Handel operas in a white-box gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan about 10 years ago.
At Houston Grand Opera, 'This Is a Good Time'

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

Driven by creative leadership and generous donors, the company, long a beacon of innovation, is bucking trends in the field. Chorus members rehearse Wagner's "Tannhäuser" at Houston Grand Opera. Credit...
Patricia Kopatchinskaja Knocks the Cobwebs Off the Violin Repertory

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

In classical music, we think we know how the great pieces go. We hear these standards so often - they have formed our ears so thoroughly - that it can be hard to imagine why some of them were resisted when they were new. Take Tchaikovsky's beloved Violin Concerto, which endears us with its graceful lyricism and good spirits. Not when Patricia Kopatchinskaja plays it. Kopatchinskaja, who makes her New York Philharmonic debut on Wednesday, released a recording of the Tchaikovsky in 2016.
Dudamel Leads a Premiere by a Youthful Ravel. Not Bad for a Kid. - The New York Times

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Zachary Woolfe

The New York Philharmonic and its next music director gave “Sémiramis” its first public hearing, alongside other Ravel pieces and works by Varèse and Gershwin.
The Classical Music Our Critics Can't Stop Thinking About

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Joshua Barone |Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim |Zachary Woolfe |Oussama Zahr

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. A clip from the Boston Symphony Orchestra's performance in April 2023. There was a time in recent memory when a performance of Julia Wolfe's "Her Story," for women's chamber choir and orchestra, would have passed without incident.