The NSO’s European tour, a one-man “Figaro” and a musical conversation with Simone Leigh are among the year’s highlights.
As usual, my retrospective list of the “best” classical and opera offerings of the year has a lot more to do with lasting impressions than definitive rankings. This was a year of big tours and bold experiments, ambitious premieres and painful losses — among them: Sarah Gibson, Peter Schickele, Seiji Ozawa, Ewa Podleś, Maurizio Pollini and Richard Dyer.
What follows are some of my favorite musical memories from the past year. But if I can inspire you to remember just one thing from 2024, let it be my prediction that the Beyoncé trilogy will conclude with an opera. I’m very invested in being right about this.
2. Lorca came alive at the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Ainadamar’
Opera aspires to be everything at once, and Deborah Colker’s dreamlike vision of Osvaldo Golijov’s 2003 portrait of Federico García Lorca aspired to pure poetry. Soprano Angel Blue soared in the role of Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu, and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack was an appropriately haunting Lorca. But what brought this “Ainadamar” to life was its ceaseless, sinuous movement, carried atop a current of flamenco sounds. With the Met going all-in on contemporary opera, this production feels like an instant classic.