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Review: AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: THREE 20-MINUTE OPERAS at Washington National Opera
The separation of the Washington National Opera from the overrun-and-soon-to-close Kennedy Center has meant next season’s eight planned productions, including five full length operas, will occur on five different stages in the D.C. area. ...
Review: THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE at St. Louis Opera Theatre
It's almost a century-and-a-half old, but it's as fresh and appealing as when it first bounded into the public eye on New Year's Eve, 1879. It's The Pirates of Penzance—perhaps the most irresistible of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic 'Savoy' operas. Opera Theatre of St. Louis has opened a delicio...
Review: TURANDOT Returns for Another Go-Around at the Met in Classic Zeffirelli Production
I’d say that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is not a maxim that has ever been used for Puccini’s Chinese-inspired fairytale, TURANDOT, which returned for another go-around at the Met the other day with two alternating casts. (I saw it with Liudmyla Monastyrska, Roberto Alagna and Juli...
Review: IL TURCO IN ITALIA, Glyndebourne
Il Turco In Italia may not be Rossini's most famous work, but if there is any justice, this wonderful revival of Mariame Clément's 2021 Festival production will bring this opera to much wider attention. An uproarious comedy accompanied by a rousingly galloping score and gorgeous vocals; it is the e...
Review: TOSCA, Glyndebourne
Tosca is Giacomo Puccini's fast-paced thriller of an opera; brimming with tension and political intrigue. For many it is Puccini's best work, yet incredibly it has never been staged at Glyndebourne. Until now. It is a show of firsts all round: the first mainstage production for director Ted Huffman...
Review: Barber’s VANESSA – or Is It ERIKA? – Returns with Heartbeat Opera
I caught up with Heartbeat Opera’s reinvention of Samuel Barber’s 1958 opera, VANESSA, to Giancarlo Menotti’s libretto, a few days after its debut at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York, after premiering last summer at the Williamstown (MA) Theatre Festival....
Review: FRIDA Y DIEGO is the Ultimate Dream in Its Met Premiere
The story of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera—two great Mexican artists who also happened to be in a tempestuous marriage—seems tailor-made for the opera stage. They struggled in their art, as well as in their lives and relationship with one another. Passions explode. So it’s not surprising to see...
Review: SAMSON ET DALILA, Royal Ballet And Opera
This revival of Richard Jones’s 2022 production of Samson et Dalila excels on a musical level with spectacular performances by Aigul Akhmetshina as Dalila and SeokJong Baek as Samson....
Review: PETER GRIMES, Royal Ballet And Opera
Peter Grimes hinges on balancing the duality between its chorus and Grimes as an individual. In one corner the spectacle of the mob, bustling and boiling with rage in their witch hunt for Grimes, and in the other corner is lonely fisherman Grimes himself, whose mental breakdown demands gutturally in...
Review: TRAVIATA May Not Be in Opera’s ABCs But Jaho Gives Lesson in Making It Her Own
Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho wasn’t the first Violetta of this season’s LA TRAVIATA by Verdi at the Met. That means less rehearsal time and preparation in general—but you could have fooled me and the rest of the audience at Wednesday’s performance. She was in tiptop shape, after a bit of w...
Review: CARMEN at McCaw Hall
The production, with its flamboyantly portrayed characters and colorful background, fulfilled the most crowd-pleasing elements of the work...
Review: JETTE PARKER ARTISTS: TALES OF LOVE AND LOSS, Royal Ballet And Opera
Ana Inés Jabares-Pita's set feels familiar and clearly defines time and place: The Departure remains in the 1960s; Making Arrangements moves into the 1970s, where a woman could choose to live independently; Four Sisters is in the materialistic 1980s, where 'greed is good'.
The changes of style in ...
Review: FALSTAFF Shows that We Can Count on Juilliard for the Next Generation of Singers
In case we had to be reminded—after the Met’s recent Laffont Competition lineup, where three Juilliard singers were among the finalists—the Juilliard School is among the top sources of the next generation of opera singers (among many other categories, of course). Two of those singers were in t...
Review: Hannigan is a ‘Double Threat’ - Singing/Conducting LA VOIX HUMAINE at the NY Philharmonic
There was a time early in this century when conductor Lorin Maazel led Massenet’s opera THAIS, surprising audiences by picking up a violin during Act II to play the work’s famous “Meditation” himself—usually the realm of the concertmaster. At the NY Philharmonic’s performance of Poulenc�...
Review: JULIETTA at Wrocław Opera
What can you do with a 90-year-old piece about a man madly in love, slowly slipping into a dream he has no desire to wake up from? Quite a lot, it turns out....
Review: Despite Stellar Cast, Met's ONEGIN Revival Refuses to Fly in Warner’s Misbegotten Production
In the Met’s much-anticipated revival of Tchaikovsky’s EUGENE ONEGIN, almost anything that could go wrong, in fact, did, at Monday night’s premiere. How can something that looks good on paper turn into a mostly dull night at the Met is the definition of directorial misconduct. In size and scal...
Review: LUCREZIA BORGIA at Opera Royal De Wallonie Liège
Some evenings remind you why opera exists. LUCREZIA BORGIA at Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège did exactly that, in a space that feels fully aligned with what opera stands for, vocal mastery, ritual, and a visual world built to carry myth sized emotion....
Review: SALOME, York Hall
Mark Ravenhill takes over a legendary boxing venue for a show that packs plenty of punch...
Review: Kaija Saariaho’s INNOCENCE – An Opera About a Killing Spree – Doesn’t Let Up in Met Premiere
I noticed that the Simon Stone production of Kaija Saariaho’s INNOCENCE, which had its local premiere last night at the Met, was a co-commission and -production of five other opera companies. It was not hard to tell why: It was challenging (the music included) at every turn—brutal, cruel, angry,...
Review: San Diego Opera Performs Bizet's CARMEN at San Diego Civic Center
Carmen is the world’s third most performed opera. Its tale of the doomed love affair between an innocent young soldier and a beguiling young woman unconstrained by conventional beliefs was seen in more than 6,000 productions on five continents last year. This performance was in the opera’s origi...
Review: The Turn of the Screw, Royal Ballet And Opera
A new production by Natalie Abrahami and Michael Levine, The Turn of the Screw at the Royal Opera House haunts with eerie staging, finely judged performances, and Benjamin Britten’s still-chilling score....
Review: RIGOLETTO, Royal Ballet And Opera
When this Rigoletto first opened the Royal Opera House’s first full season after the long pandemic silence, it felt less like a return to normality and more like a statement of intent. To relaunch with Rigoletto, arguably Giuseppe Verdi’s bleakest work, was a bold, almost confrontational choice....
Review: World Premiere of Lang’s NATIONS Brings Wealth of Music to NY Philharmonic under Dudamel
Composer David Lang’s THE WEALTH OF NATIONS had a splendid world premiere this week at the New York Philharmonic under Artistic Director Designate Gustavo Dudamel, with mezzo Fleur Barron, bass-baritone Davone Tines and the Philharmonic’s chorus (under Malcolm Merriweather)....
Review: Handel’s Unfamiliar but Fine HERCULES with The English Concert and Bicket, at Carnegie Hall
If you’re thinking of the muscle-bound hero of action films—or even Disney animation—boy, have you got the wrong HERCULES. As soon as Harry Bicket and his early music ensemble, ‘The English Concert,’ played their first notes of the overture at Carnegie Hall the other afternoon, we knew we ...
Review: AKHNATEN at Los Angeles Opera
Glass feels to be in direct conversation with grand opera, layering incantations from the chorus over triangulations of notes played nearly ad nauseam on violas to evoke something of the mystery that shrouds ancient Egypt in western culture....
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