CLASSICAL MUSIC THEATER REVIEWS

If you want to witness the materialization of the word beauty, see this show. With thrilling voices, amazing Puccini music, and vital presentation this opera will lead you straight to musical heaven....

One of the greatest successes of recent Met seasons is Philip Glass's AKHNATEN, first seen in 2019.I saw it three times that year and fell under its spell each time.It is being revived this season....

Musical impressionism ruled the San Diego Symphony’s early-evening Rady Shell concert this past weekend. First came conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen’s reaction to Nyx, a daughter of Chaos, the earliest Greek god. Nyx, rarely mentioned in extant ancient Greek-literature, is goddess of the nig...

While this production of 'Carmen' is very traditional on its face, the thoughtfulness and sheer talent packed into this performance elevates it to something far more engaging, and absolutely enchanting. It’s more than worthy of audiences’ time, and hopefully WNO’s fresh interpretation will hel...

When some people hear the word 'community' before the word(s) chorus, theater, band, or orchestra, they really hear 'amateur.' Although amateur means to do something for the love of it, the word also seems to have a negative connotation when it comes to quality. After all, if there's no money involv...

A new recording of Saint-Saens's opera HENRY VIII, by Odyssey Opera, has come my way. It is a complete version of the work which is dated 1883. Odyssey Opera is a company dedicated to the performance of operas that are out of the mainstream but are deemed worthy of recognition. ...

'What the hell was that?' an opera fan asked her friend as we shuffled into a parking-garage elevator. Not an easily answered question after a viewing of AGING MAGICIAN. Ambiguity abounds and reality is mixed with fantasy. The reality side is clear, mostly. Harold is a middle-aged watch repairman...

Bernard Labadie led a transcendent performance of Bach's ST.MATTHEW PASSION at Carnegie Hall....

Bible stories are not always the easiest to listen to, and sometimes have the net effect of putting the listener to sleep. When Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was inspired to write about the life of the prophet Elijah, however, he took the story to the next level...

The Canadian Opera Company marked its return-to-stage after nearly two years with this all-around stunning production of one of Verdi’s most well-known works. Clocking in at just shy of three hours, the four-act opera tells the tale of Parisian courtesan Violetta (Amina Edris, making her COC debut...

The Dallas Opera's production of Bizet's THE PEARL FISHERS acts as a satisfying palate cleanser, providing the talent audiences have come to expect from the company as well as a dream of a show....

UCO's opera department offers a cautionary tale. The Consul tells the story of one family trying to escape a country they can no longer call home. Though it ran on Broadway in 1950, it brings to mind current images that are seen on the news every night. Parallels to refugees and the bureaucratic sys...

The 2013 production of Tchaikovsky's Pushkin-inspired opera EUGENE ONEGIN has triumphantly returned to the Met. I attended the final dress rehearsal and can attest to the fact that the story of Tatyana's infatuation with, and later rejection of, the eponymous 'hero' is vocally in superb hands. Both ...

Violin, dance, opera singers and the sounds of Nina Simone are just a few possible experiences you can have at one time at The Blue Building....

When he was four-years old Joshua Bell's parents found him making music by plucking rubber bands stretched to different lengths on dresser drawers. Clearly, he needed a real instrument. Fortunately, they bought a violin rather than a guitar. Ten years later he was the youngest ever to solo with the ...

In their recent concert, the Colorado Symphony opened with Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra before moving on to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, K. 491 featuring guest artist Joyce Yang, piano....

Nelson Riddle, the legendary arranger/orchestrator/composer is largely responsible for what we think of as the sound of The Great American Songbook. His arrangements and orchestrations for artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Johnny Mathis,...

I love seeing in the arts when a company takes a classic work and reimagines it for a modern audience. This often allows for more imaginative and innovative production that brings a brand new audience to your company. As they begin their 50th Season, Des Moines Metro Opera brings Wolfgang Amadeus Mo...

A romantic burlesque turns out to be an abstract path to nothingness through perverse vanity. Must see....

The Washington National Opera has gathered a company of first rate singers for a portmanteau of four, one-act operas called Written in Stone. Unfortunately, their fine skills and exceptional voices cannot make silk purses out of scores, libretti, and orchestrations that evade aesthetics, emphasize n...

I flipped over Lise Davidsen when she made her Met debut in QUEEN OF SPADES—the voice, the acting, the overall subtlety--but I was still unprepared for the performance she gave as the Prima Donna who became Princess Ariadne of Crete in Strauss’s ARIADNE AUF NAXOS. She was altogether divine....

The La Jolla Music Society has been bringing some of the world’s best string quartets into the Baker-Baum Concert Hall at The Conrad. With a little over 500 seats and acoustics that allow you to hear off-stage whispers, it’ a setting that could only be improved upon if the performing quartet vis...

I suppose it’s true you can always find our way back home, especially if home is where the heart is, as they say. For Denver’s own Dianne Reeves making her return to Boettcher Concert Hall, it feels like Dolly Levy has come back to Harmonia Gardens. ...

I admire the plucky inventiveness of the San Diego Opera. On an annual budget of roughly three percent of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, it has managed to mount a consistently appealing and entertaining variety of productions, traditional and contemporary, in both good times and plague times. The ...

Bold new production of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s iconic rendering of the classic Greek tragedy...