Review: HMS Pinafore, London Coliseum
A revival of Cal McCrystal’s 2021 production, HMS Pinafore at the London Coliseum charms with wit, a stunning cast, and gorgeous Victorian designs.
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Review: Cleveland Orchestra’s Splendid VERDI REQUIEM at Carnegie Hall
The Verdi Messa da Requiem—better known to English speakers as the Verdi Requiem—featuring the Cleveland Orchestra and its Chorus, with a quartet of soloists, breezed into Carnegie Hall the other night and promptly knocked many concert-goers out of their seats.
Review: DAPHNE IN CONCERT at McCaw Hall
Daphne in Concert, Seattle Opera’s latest offering in their series of concert presentations initiated in 2023, proved that the series concept is a successful one.
Review: The Gordon-Foreman WHAT TO WEAR is Totally Wonderful at Prototype in BAM's Harvey
Yoo-hoo, Metropolitan Opera.
Review: CARMEN Sizzles with Akhmetshina Heading Stellar Cast at the Met
From her first appearance on stage, it was clear that mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina was no flash in the pan, giving us a scorching Carmen when this production was new just two years ago.
Review: Snider’s Brilliant Score Anchors HILDEGARD at Prototype under Pulitzer’s Caring Eye
This is Beth Morrison’s first year as sole curator, producer and presenter of New York’s PROTOTYPE Festival of indie opera/music theatre.
Review: LA TRAVIATA, Royal Ballet And Opera
Opera as a whole may be too reliant on museum pieces, on endless identikit revivals designed to secure bums on seats.
Review: PURITANI Is Bel Canto Bliss with Oropesa and Brownlee under Armiliato's Baton
The Met’s new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s I PURITANI made its debut on New Year’s Eve, but I caught up with it at its third performance on January 6.
Review: Warhorses? Hi Yo, Silver, With Sierra, Grigorian, Radvanovsky, Jagde at Carnegie Hall
The program said “Christmas Night Opera” but it didn’t happen till the 27th at Carnegie Hall.
Review: Before There Was Charlie Brown, There Was Menotti’s AMAHL, now at Lincoln Center Theater
Lincoln Center Theater’s new Kenny Leon production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS, presented in association with the Metropolitan Opera, is hardly “A Charlie Brown Christmas” or “The Nutcracker.
Review: TURANDOT, Royal Ballet And Opera
The Royal Opera House’s Turandot has now been running so long it feels less like a revival and more like a listed structure.
Review: MOZART’S THE MAGIC FLUTE at The Metropolitan Opera
As the houselights dim at the Metropolitan Opera, the Julie Taymor–directed The Magic Flute transports viewers into a buoyant and kaleidoscopic fairy-tale dreamworld.
Review: ARIODANTE, Royal Ballet and Opera
Musically impressive with real high points, the drama does not quite hold together
Review: PORGY AND BESS Raises the Roof at the Metropolitan
When I read that the Met, in the program notes for James Robinson’s production of PORGY AND BESS, called it “a supremely American operatic masterpiece” I couldn’t help but think of Stephen Sondheim’s answer (perhaps apocryphal) when he was asked whether SWEENEY TODD was an opera or a music
Review: LAST DAYS, Royal Ballet And Opera
We still don’t know what Kurt Cobain did in the days before his suicide in 1994.
Review: THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL PASSION at The Church Of The Intercession
Performed with exquisite control by the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, the hour-long concert of DAVID LANG'S THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL PASSION becomes something far larger than the sum of its parts.
Review: Beczala and Golovatenko Make Met’s CHENIER a Memorable Night under Rustioni
For those of us who like verismo opera—combining the raw emotions of everyday people with historical splendor—but have heard one too many BOHEMEs, TOSCAs, TURANDOTs and BUTTERFLYs in this lifetime, noting Giordano’s ANDREA CHENIER in the Met’s repertoire for this season seemed like a godsend
Review: PARTENOPE, London Coliseum
Here are all the hallmarks of any good Shakespearean comedy: love polygons, gender trouble and a shipwreck to get things going.
Review: Strauss’s ARABELLA Has the Music and the Singers—and Old Vienna—at the Met
For all those operagoers tired of classics set in rodeos, Las Vegas or on a space station (Paris has a BOHEME of that ilk), Otto Schenk’s production for ARABELLA, with stage design by Gunther Schneider Siemssen, dating back to 1983, will be a relief.
Review: THE SORCERER at Winter Opera
Gina Galati’s delightful Winter Opera company has opened its season with a revival of a rarely seen Gilbert and Sullivan show—The Sorcerer.
Review: DEAD MAN WALKING, London Coliseum
A confession.
Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S PAGLIACCI at San Diego Civic Theater
San Diego Opera opened its 2025-26 season on a Halloween night with an appropriately disturbing opera about a murderous clown.
Review: Who Was That MASQUE-d Man? Davone Tines, with Sonnambula Ensemble at the Frick
Some of the audience at the chamber concert at the Frick Collection Museum—that jewel-box museum of art from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century on New York’s Upper East Side—had fought its way there through the runners of the NYC Marathon.
Review: A REGIMENT with Comic Style and High Notes, Thanks to Morley and Brownlee at the Met
It’s hard for a soprano to get a break in Donizetti’s LA FILLE DU REGIMENT, which I caught up with at the Met on Friday evening.
Review: ROMÉO ET JULIETTE at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
Charles Gounod took Shakespeare’s tale of the star-crossed lovers and adapted it to create the 1867 opera, Roméo et Juliette, with an overture and Shakespeare’s explanatory prologue, delivered by the chorus, followed by a five-act opera, with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré.
