The New York Times realizes a rich artistic landscape in Philadelphia that came alive at the Friday opening of the Opera Company of Philadelphia's "Phaedra" American premiere.
And in the Perelman Theater, an intimate space at the Kimmel Center, just steps away from the Philadelphia Orchestra's dimly regarded home at Verizon Hall, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has scored a substantial artistic coup with the American premiere of "Phaedra," a compelling 2007 opera by Hans Werner Henze. Part of the company's growing contemporary chamber-opera initiative, a new production directed by Robert B. Driver, opened on Friday night.That this opera, an 80-minute setting of a German libretto by Christian Lehnert, exists at all is something of a miracle. Mr. Henze had announced that his previous opera, "L'Upupa," or "The Hoopoe, and the Triumph of Filial Love" (2003), would be his last. Then, having completed most of the first act of "Phaedra" in 2005, Mr. Henze, already ailing, fell into a two-month coma, from which his recovery was uncertain.Original source: The New York Times
Read the full story
here.