CLASSICAL MUSIC THEATER REVIEWS

Last week Des Moines Metro Opera (DMMO) and Iowa Public Broadcasting Service started the 2020 Virtual Opera season with a stunning airing of 'Manon.' The decision to go virtual this season was due to the continuing COVID crisis. They continue their summer season this week with their 2018 production ...

Opera companies worldwide have found themselves canceling their seasons, including Des Moines Metro Opera (DMMO).  The difference with DMMO is that they have had an Emmy winning partnership with Iowa Public Television, now called Iowa Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), coming together to give you t...

With the world in growing turmoil, what we need is Music, Tales and Magic, which is just what the ASPECT Chamber Music presented on March 11, 2020....

British guest conductor Bramwell Tovey led the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in authoritative performances of William Walton's Crown Imperial (Coronation March), Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto and the Enigma Variations of Edward Elgar. Britannia indeed ruled on this night! In 1936 Walton was a...

Conductor Eun Sun Kim is the recently named musical director of the San Francisco Opera. In her debut with the San Diego Symphony she opened her program with Korean composer Texu Kim's playful Spin-Flip. Two hyperromantic works followed, the Sibelius violin concerto and Rachmaninoff's third symphony...

Bad haircuts can be tragic, but none more so than for Samson, the Biblical figure whose strength was sapped the moment his mullet was gone. The treacherous shearing by a revenge-seeking Delilah launched centuries of retelling, including Camille Saint-Saëns' opera 'Samson and Delilah' which the Wash...

Some unclear choices keep a beautifully-designed and often well-sung GIOVANNI from making the impact it intends to....

The ASPECT Chamber Music Series presents concerts in an unusual format, one which transforms (according to their literature) “the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging and thought-provoking blend of performance, speech and image.” ...

Beethoven was born 250 years ago. The San Diego Symphony's most recent birthday present in its celebration of the anniversary was an engaging performance of his violin concerto by violinist Stefan Jackiw. Conductor Rafael Payare, as though beginning one of Beethoven's powerful symphonies, put som...

Mahler's audiences have ridden tsunamis of emotions and the musicians who play his music experience tsunamis of notes. This concert did not disappoint....

Composer Chou Wen-chung, who died recently at the age of 96, was honored at the most recent 'red fish blue fish' percussion concert. Chou's works have been performed by major orchestras throughout the world, and he mentored many who have gone on to successful careers of their own. Tan Dun and Chen Y...

How lucky we are to be living in the age of Mark Morris! My first thought watching San Francisco Ballet's opening night performance of their a?oeClassical (Re)Visiona?? program was a?oeGod, they're good!a?? SF Ballet presents a sparking and varied program of contemporary ballet that will leave you s...

Bernard Labadie led the Orchestra of St Luke's in a well-curated program of magnificent Baroque music Thursday night.  The evening also served to expose New Yorkers to the rich contralto voice of Marie-Nicole Lemieux, a singer who has been garnering praise and awards for the last twenty years....

After the concert version of West Side Story and an extensive tour of the musical Bells Are Ringing, director Jean Lacornerie and musical director Gérard Lecointe have chosen to collaborate again, delivering to the French public a comparatively little known musical of the 50s, The Pajama Game, whic...

Beethoven was born 250 years ago, and the world has been honoring the anniversary with a deluge of the great composer's music. The San Diego Symphony's celebration continued with strong, well-played performances of Beethoven's Egmont Overture and sixth symphony. Principal Guest Conductor Edo de Waar...

'And Still We Dream' song cycle carries most of the weight of this rather thin production....

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) gave a stunning performance of works by Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, and Tan Dun on Sunday, December 15th 2019....

As a reviewer you hear lots of advance hype about a particular show or performer before having your own experience. Much of the time the hype doesn't live up to the end product. Selling over 90 million recordings opera singer Andrea Bocelli was definitely one of those performers who I had heard a lo...

The San Diego Opera's first Detour Series performance this season was 'One Amazing Night' with Soprano Ailyn Pérez, tenor Joshua Guerrero and accompanist Abdiel Vázquez. All are outstanding young award winners with impressive resumes. The first half featured operatic arias, enjoyable and worth the...

The San Diego Symphony Orchestra's Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling returned again for multiple performances this season. In the first of these he was at the helm for Rimsky-Korsakov's Suite from The Snow Maiden, Prokofiev's third piano concerto, and Dvorák's eighth symphony....

I know it takes a leap of faith for the Met to schedule something outside the ABC operas--AIDA, BOHEME, CARMEN plus a TOSCA, TURANDOT and a few others--and go for something a little more off the beaten track. Tchaikovsky's QUEEN OF SPADES certainly falls into that category, even though it isn't exac...

Get a first look and check out reviews for the Met Opera's The Queen of Spades! Tchaikovsky's eerie thriller of imperial Russia has its first performances at the Met since 2011. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov is Hermann, the fanatical gambler whose obsession with a powerful secret drives him to madness. Sopran...

No one knows what is going on underneath the modest exterior. Such was the case of Austrian-born Anton Bruckner (1824-1896). A man whose personal credo seems to have been 'say little but do much,' Bruckner managed to overcome a difficult early life with a huge amount of perseverance, not to mention ...

Of numerous operaphiles I have encountered, there is a fair amount of partisanship when it comes  to COSI FAN TUTTE by Mozart.  People either love it or dislike it.  I believe the plot is partially to blame; an aging bachelor challenges two younger friends to test their fiancees' devotion and sup...

Sometimes orchestras program pieces to meet popular demand, and at other times, they program works to meet expectations or fulfill a sense of obligation. It's so easy to yield to inertia. This past weekend's Charlotte Symphony concerts balanced both types of choices. The DVOŘÁK'S NEW WORLD SYMPHON...