Whitney M. Fishburn

Opera Lafayette takes a French comic classic to the Old West

Take any decent road trip through the American West and you’re bound to pass half a dozen old opera houses in varying states of disrepair, or repair — if there happens to be a local renaissance...

Eric Whitacre’s new virtual choral work is testament to power of community

“Human beings will go to any length necessary to find and connect with each other.” —Eric Whitacre, in a 2011 TED Talk Even anti-maskers, I suppose, are dimly aware of the heightened risks of human...

‘Riffs and Relations’: WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists Program sounds so very American

You’d have to be dead not to enjoy a recital of the caliber given this past Sunday in the Phillips Collection Music Room by members of the current class of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young...

IN Series’ ‘Dorothy Fields Cabaret’ honors first woman inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

In my 20s, I lamented that despite being well-schooled in American literature, I’d ended up a failure at knowing much of our nation’s poetry by heart. But when I set out to entertain myself and a...

WNO’s ‘Don Giovanni’ signals the cultural and healing power of Washington’s arts scene

The Washington National Opera’s current production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni confirms two important ideas. The first is that while opera is most effective when it entertains, its intrinsic value is...

Opera Lafayette debuts sophisticated recreation of Beethoven’s ‘Leonore (1805)’

Thanks in part to the bold addition of a missing tenor aria, Opera Lafayette’s elegant production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore (1805), last night at The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater,...

NSO: Noseda’s homecoming mints the ‘NSO sound’ in spectacular Mahler’s Fifth Symphony

Even though being a classical music reviewer often feels like a gig too good to be true, I don’t recall ever forgetting my purpose for attending a performance. There’s a first for everything, however,...

The New Orchestra of Washington presents a love so powerful it hurts in ‘A Poet’s Love: It’s Complicated’

While much of the city is abuzz with romantic romping this Valentine’s Day weekend, the New Orchestra of Washington will concern itself with the transformative power of love and loss when it presents...

Pianist Yefim Bronfman dazzles, while NSO disengages under guest conductor Gemma New

Nature, nuance, or its lack thereof, were central themes when the National Symphony Orchestra welcomed conductor Gemma New, pianist Yefim Bronfman, and the young composer Salina Fisher to Washington...

Old dogs and new tricks: the Hermès Quartet and guests in performance at the Phillips Collection

Here’s a thought: Older virtuosi are boring. That’s not original to me, but to an audience member who offered his views during a concert intermission recently. We were at the Phillips Collection for a...

WNO’s American Opera Initiative 2020 is an essential take on opera in America

“It’s a ridiculous thing to sing at the top of your lungs about your vulnerability,” American composer Laura Kaminsky observed to this year’s Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative...

IN Series’ ‘Le Cabaret de Carmen’ is opera for those unafraid of art’s raw power

“I want us to be in contention for a Helen Hayes Award,” IN Series artistic director Timothy Nelson told me last fall over coffee near his office in the Shaw neighborhood. We were discussing his...

The ‘Long View’ glimpses inner life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

There has been plenty of backlash during this administration against what some critics have called “the cult” of RBG, aka, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Some are critical of the...

Choral Arts Society Holiday Concert: sing along and hear expert musicians celebrate the season

If singing along to the Hallelujah Chorus or Hark, the Herald Angels Sing are requisite to bolstering your holiday spirit, then Songs of the Season: Christmas with Choral Arts at the Kennedy Center...

IN Series’ ‘L’enfance du Christ’ offers all-comers respite, transcendence, unity

How history will judge us for this administration’s treatment of Central American migrant children, I often wonder. And yet, our record of abuse against “Other” is not partisan, but has accumulated...

BSO’s latest Lera Auerbach commission worthy of attention

A frustration of many classical and contemporary music critics is that we hear a new work that seems to have great promise for being added to the canon, and then poof! It disappears, never to be...

BSO performs US premiere of Lera Auerbach’s ‘Eve’s Lament – O Flowers, That Never Will Grow’ this week in Baltimore and Bethesda

Now that this summer’s drama surrounding the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s financial woes has quieted, at least for now, we can focus on the significant contributions our home state orchestra and its...

Cantus’s ‘Alone Together’ at the Kennedy Center puts form over function

Attending Cantus’s Alone Together at the Kennedy Center made me realize that meaningful interaction relies as much upon solitude and mystery as it does connection and revelation. The vocal octet’s...

Vocal ensemble Cantus explores human connection in the Digital Age with ‘Alone Together’ at the Kennedy Center

“I realized the thing I missed most in my process was people,” American composer Libby Larsen told me recently. She was speaking about her commissioned work YOU, which the vocal ensemble Cantus will...

Exploding the canon: Inside the IN Series opera company’s “radical” practice

Now into his second year leading IN Series, the itinerant company based at the Source Theater, artistic director Timothy Nelson has not been shy about challenging opera’s status quo. “I believe that...

A seamless ‘Magic Flute’ at Washington National Opera

The opening night performance of Washington National Opera’s production of Wolfgang A. Mozart’s The Magic Flute was perfectly pleasing, even if the show as written is just too long. Tradition holds...

A tragic ‘Otello’ at Washington National Opera

The crowd cheered. We were on the Kennedy Center jitney to the Foggy Bottom Metro stop. I had just read aloud a text from my husband that said Howie Kendrick had hit a two-run homer to put the Nats up...

Spektral Quartet lets audiences explore the space ‘in-between’

There was a time when I needed the cash, so I substitute taught high school. Turns out I had a knack for helping resistant young minds to focus. The key to getting my students where they needed to go...

Appropriate or Appropriation? PostClassical Ensemble and The Lakota Music Project Frames Debate on Indigenous Music

If this summer’s Baltimore Symphony Orchestra labor dispute underscored that remonstrating over the sustainability of American symphony orchestras is pointless if we don’t clarify whether they should...

A Last-Minute Program Change Helps Showcase NSO’s Evolving Signature Sound

The National Symphony Orchestra’s third season opener signaled a distinctively bright and cohesive sound is developing under Maestro Gianandrea Noseda. Noseda explained to the crowd that his...

REACH Report: Renée Fleming, Angélique Kidjo, and Jason Moran

Two of the world’s biggest voices blended beautifully Thursday night on the Main Stage at the Kennedy Center’s REACH Opening Festival, demonstrating the power of song to unify and inspire disparate...

Review: Olney Theatre Center’s ‘Cabaret’ Is Among the Show’s Best Productions

It’s been 54 years since Cabaret first opened on Broadway, but this season is the first time the Olney Theatre Center has staged the show. I have always loved this Kander and Ebb masterpiece, but of...

‘Musica Viva Kentlands’ Puts Classical Music Outdoors in Gaithersburg, Maryland

Traveling through the south of France one glorious September, regardless of where my companion and I found ourselves, it seemed that at one point in the afternoon, there would be a classical music...

Jets and Sharks: Is the BSO Missing an Opportunity?

Much of my career has been spent as a health sciences writer. This training helps keep in check my music critic’s right brained instinct to find metaphors in a story. It’s a good restraint to have,...

A Lively NSO Dazzles, Hinting of Still More Good Things to Come

Now that National Symphony Orchestra music director Gianandrea Noseda has nearly completed two full seasons – and has signed on to stay through 2025 – a clearer picture of the possibilities we can...

WNO Gala Demonstrates America’s Solid Standing on Opera’s World Stage

From the nexus of divas, dollars, and diplomats at this year’s Washington National Opera Gala, there arose a thrilling truth: The finely frocked foreigners in attendance might question America’s role...

WNO’s ‘Tosca’ Serves Up Classic Opera Comfort Food Done Right

The Washington National Opera’s (WNO) fine opening night performance of Puccini’s Tosca provided an opportunity for catharsis and reflection, two things our overwrought city needs right now. My...

When BSO’s OrchKids Show Up, Good Things Happen

In the early 1990s, I lived in New Orleans at the corner of Philip and Constance streets. At the time, it was the transition zone between the toney Garden District and the St. Thomas projects. More...

Review: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Porgy and Bess’ a Crowd-Pleaser

Let’s get the persnickety stuff out of the way first. Then we can get to why the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s second Porgy and Bess in concert at the Strathmore Music Center in three years is...

Hit the Bars (of Music) For Lunch: Free Midday Concerts in the DC Area

Food trucks are a fun and a convenient way to sample something tasty and new, but don’t forget to check out the bars – of music that is. Several DC area venues offer bite-sized classical music...

Washington Bach Consort’s Noontime Cantata Series: A DC Tradition in the Making

For thirty years, the Washington Bach Consort has offered its Noontime Cantata Series to Washingtonians seeking a free musical escape in the middle of the workday, something District officials have...

Review: ‘Faust’ by Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center

It’s been a quarter of a century since Satan came to call on the Kennedy Center, but the Washington National Opera’s production of Faust (with music by Charles Gounod and libretto by Jules Barbier and...

BSO’s Marin Alsop Defines, Delivers “New Normal” in Classical Music

Marin Alsop thinks we’re ready for a “new normal” in classical music. That is why the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s music director has commissioned a work by a renowned composer who happens to be a...

Not Just ‘Dead White Guys’: Kennedy Center Artistic Directors Defend 2019-2020 Season

The Kennedy Center’s artistic directorial staff defended their calculus for choosing their collective 2019-2020 classical-music season during a media briefing and panel discussion earlier this week....

Maestro Antony Walker Previews ‘Le vin herbé’ by Wolf Trap Opera and Washington Concert Opera

Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, the composer’s operatic meditation on the metaphysical nature of love, sex, and death, is generally accepted to be the “before/after” point in the history of Western...

Review: ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ by Maryland Lyric Opera

The Maryland Lyric Opera’s stated raison d’etre is to find and nurture good singers, then give them a place to test their mettle on masterworks such as those by Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and the like....

American Opera Is Becoming Its Own Genre and It’s Happening Here in DC

Opera in America has had the stink of death upon it for some time now. Lavish productions of period piece love stories and power struggles set largely during the time of kings and courtesans in Europe...

Soloman Howard: Southeast’s Operatic Superstar Reprises ‘The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me’ at the Kennedy Center

Growing up in Southeast DC, Soloman Howard had a godfather who saw to it that the young singer’s obvious basso gift did not languish for lack of training and opportunity. “My godfather, Thomas Dixon...

Review: ‘Don Juan Tenorio’ at GALA Theatre

While Don Juan, the character, is a recognizable archetype of insatiable lust, the GALA Theatre’s Don Juan Tenorio, is an elegant, at times humorous, meditation on the psychic toll abject narcissism...

Report #2: ‘Callado Conmigo’ (‘Silenced Within Me’) at GALA Hispanic Theatre

It was an informal gathering. Barefoot. Casual attire. Just a handful of women standing in a semi-circle, reciting words from a page. They were from a variety of South and Central American countries,...