Washington National Opera

Gary Tischler • March 7, 2019

THEATER

No upcoming D.C. theater event is probably more of interest to local theatergoers than the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s landmark production of “The Oresteia” by Aeschylus, the only surviving trilogy from the ancient Greeks, a trio of plays — “Agamemnon,” …

Richard Selden • January 31, 2019

This weekend at the Kennedy Center, American Ballet Theatre is in town to perform “Harlequinade.” Friday is International Gruit Day at Pizzeria Paradiso, Saturday is Groundhog Day in Dupont Circle and you know what Sunday is. For more February events, …

Richard Selden • January 10, 2019

Prepare to raise your forks: Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week is Jan. 14 to 20. But first, please note this weekend’s art openings and musical choices, including three 20-minute operas at the Kennedy Center and piano duo ZOFO at Dumbarton Oaks. …

Richard Selden • November 23, 2018

This weekend, the National Symphony Orchestra will play along with clips from “Frozen” and other Disney Animation favorites. Ending their runs: “Silent Night” and “The Fall.” On Small Business Saturday, Nov. 24, the Georgetown Christmas Tree Farm will open and …

Gary Tischler • November 21, 2018

CLOSE TO HOME

Let’s start with the Dumbartons. Dumbarton Concerts at Dumbarton United Methodist Church hosts a tribute to John Coltrane by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (Dec. 1) and, a week later, a candlelit “Celtic Christmas” by the Barnes …

Gary Tischler • November 12, 2018

On any other night, the Washington National Opera presentation of “Silent Night,” by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, in the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater could have been just another busy and buzzy opening night at the opera.

It …

Gary Tischler • November 8, 2018

Art — not all art, but most and much of it — and artists — not all artists but many — strive to explain and describe the world to us, to help us make sense of it, in joyful, painful, …

Gary Tischler • October 15, 2018

Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s 1853 classic opera “La Traviata” goes way back in time. It’s one of the great operas in the repertoire, showing up repeatedly on the lists of seasons for national and international opera companies and venues every …

Gary Tischler • October 11, 2018

“Familiarity breeds contempt” is an abiding expression applicable to all sorts of situations — television shows (and their stars) that have overstayed their welcomes, advertising jingles or popular songs that have played one too many times in the soundtrack of …

Gary Tischler • May 7, 2018

When “Candide,” a collaborative product of composer Leonard Bernstein and playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman, based on a thin fable-novel by Voltaire, the Enlightenment’s superstar philosopher-wit, opened in Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre (now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre) in 1956, it …