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.
Opera Theater Reviews
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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'.
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).
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.
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.
Review: LUCREZIA BORGIA at Opera Royal De Wallonie Liège
Some evenings remind you why opera exists.
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.
Review: San Diego Opera Performs Bizet's CARMEN at San Diego Civic Center
Carmen is the world’s third most performed opera.
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.
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.
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.
Review: Davidsen, an ISOLDE for the Ages, Alongside Spyres' Splendid TRISTAN in Wagner at the Met
Voice! Voice! And more voice! That’s what we got from the Met’s new production of Wagner’s TRISTAN UND ISOLDE last night, especially from the glorious soprano of Lise Davidsen as the Irish princess Isolde, with no small help from her Tristan, baritenor Michael Spyres.
Review: ROMÉO ET JULIETTE at Winter Opera
Opera is widely considered to be a seasonal flower.
Review: THE OPERA LOCOS, Sadler's Wells
If you have ever suspected that opera might benefit from fewer Valkyries and more vaudeville, Opera Locos is here to confirm your prejudice and then sing it at you in Italian.
Review: DiDonato Brings Dickinson Poems to Life through Brilliant Song Cycle by Puts at Carnegie
Though only a handful of Emily Dickinson’s hundreds of poems were published during her lifetime (more than 1700 others were found posthumously), she is best known as a risk-taking writer whose work straddled the line between the straightforward and the more abstract.
Review: LA BOHÈME, in Cinemas
What did our critic think of LA BOHEME IN CINEMAS at Cinemas Across The UK?
Review: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE BY ROSSINI at San Diego Civic Center Theater
Rossini’s Barber of Seville is a top ten opera in performances.
Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, London Coliseum
Phelim McDermott directing Così fan tutte is a bit like asking a Catholic priest to do Mass in full drag.
Review: BORIS GUDUNOV, Royal Ballet And Opera
If Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov were a dinner party, Richard Jones’s Russian-language revival at the Royal Opera House would be the dinner date where you arrive bright and curious and leave questioning your life choices, nursing a neat whisky in a corner.
Review: Bullock, Woods and Hanick Are Anything but ORDINARY THINGS at NY's 92nd Street Y
The audience at New York’s 92nd Street Y the other night was certainly happy to be at a recital, “From Ordinary Things,” by the trio of soprano Julia Bullock, with her colleagues Seth Parler Wood on cello and pianist Conor Hanick.
