The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Opera.
Someone once asked me, long ago, “Don't you ever get Baroque-d out?” The answer then--when instrumental music was more widely available than vocal--was a firm “no.
With great success, Juilliard's Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, including a notable alumna, Felicia Moore, as Susan B.
I was delighted to hear that the Oratorio Society of New York's world premiere at Carnegie Hall of SANCTUARY ROAD (Naxos 8.
Engelbert Humperdinck's HANSEL AND GRETEL opened Saturday to an audience that included several dozen children, who followed their attention from beginning to end with color, movement, and singing backed by lushly orchestrated music.
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
Welcome to the Met, AGRIPPINA: It's about time.
Antony McDonald's production of Gerald Barry's hurtling dash through Wonderland and behind the Looking Glass is a delight from start to finish - or it will be for some.
On February 2, 2020, Pacific Opera Project (POP) presented Giacomo Puccini and Giovacchino Forzano's 1918 Gianni Schicchi with Maurice Ravel and Colette's 1925 L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (The Child and the Magic Spells), a pair of lesser known operas, to a most receptive audience at Occidental
There must be something in the air, with a couple of New York's small opera companies transporting 19th-century German Romantic operas by Weber and Wagner to Texas within a couple of months, in search of ways to attract new audiences.
Winter Opera St.
Maestro Gustavo Dudamel, who usually leads the LA Philharmonic, took a busman's holiday to NY for a brace of performances with his orchestra's East Coast counterpart, the New York Philharmonic.
This year's edition of PROTOTYPE, which refers to itself as 'Opera-Theatre-Now,' has come and gone.
'And Still We Dream' song cycle carries most of the weight of this rather thin production.
I admit this is an absolutely personal, totally one-sided view of what gave one man opera thrills last year and what I will look back on with delight.
A funny thing happened the other night at the Met when the curtain came down on William Kentridge's stunning new production of Alban Berg's cruel and devastating WOZZECK.
Orlando was a deeply engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking exploration whose pondering, messages, striking soundscapes and visuals reverberated and lingered long after the curtain had closed.
For a composer so well known for his dramatic operas--SALOME and ELEKTRA the most famous of them--Richard Strauss's most popular work remains the more comic DER ROSENKAVALIER, which just made its season debut under the scintillating baton of Sir Simon Rattle, with a bevy of first-rate singers.
Richard Eyre's production gets yet another run out 25 years on, but it's so beautiful and brilliantly sung, no further justification is required.
As a reviewer you hear lots of advance hype about a particular show or performer before having your own experience.
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.
In the fifth incarnation of POP's trademark production, a new batch of hand-crafted, vegan, organically-sourced hipsters take the stage for what is quickly becoming an annual Los Angeles holiday tradition.
Since it's highly unlikely that the Met will take on Carl Maria von Weber's DIE FREISCHUTZ (frequently translated as THE MARKSMAN) anytime soon--or even in the lifetime of any baby born this year--we should be grateful to Heartbeat Opera for bringing it to New York audiences through December 15, in
Two years on, Otello is revived in all its austere majesty, albeit a majesty that can be demanding to watch across a three hours running time.
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.
November 22, 2019 Astonishing in their choice of repertoire, their innovative choreography, their elaborate and colorfully creative costuming and their commanding performance of the choreography.
