The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Opera.
The San Diego Opera's opening-night production of Verdi's Rigoletto featured the powerful voice and convincing acting of baritone Stephen Powell in a title role he has sung often.
It wasn't so long ago that countertenors were still considered an oddity; today, you can't turn around without tripping over one, or more.
According to a quote attributed to Andy Warhol, if you want to tell a good painting from a bad one, first look at a thousand paintings; then you'll realize that there are no hard and fast rules.
The American-born, Pulitzer Prize winning composer Julia Wolfe, has written a tour-de-force oratorio about the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of March 25, 1911, utilizing a huge cast of singers and instrumentalists.
Olivier Py's vision of Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda is in the purest sense of the term a wonderfully vibrant and dynamic revival.
Champion is based on a true story, focusing on the life of welterweight prizefighting champion Emile Griffith, a respected and famous boxer whose life rapidly changed after accidentally killing his opponent, Benny Paret, in the ring.
There's that initial low, stealthy tip-toeing pizzicato, like a Warner Brothers cat creeping up on a clever mouse.
n the midst of a polar vortex this winter, MN Opera sends an early valentine filled with warmth to the Twin Cities in their production The Italian Straw Hat at the Ordway Center's Orchestra Hall.
Opera stories thrive on the tension of good versus evil, of light versus darkness, and although the outcomes are not always happy, there's always an interesting tale to be told.
Pélleas et Mélisande last night was hands down the best thing the Met has done this season.
A quarter of a century after its premiere, the long-running production is still worth a shot.
The Royal Opera's new production sidelines the opera in favour of meaningless chaos.
Aida has been called the grandest of grand operas and the production that has graced the Met stage for the last (unbelievably) 30 years still looks absolutely amazing - towering columns, massive sandstone blocks, etc.
Where are our Violettas, our Salomes, our Elektras--even our Lulus--for opera to move forward as an art form for the 21 century? They're all victims of stress and suffering of one sort or another, but still worth meeting up with--not only musically but dramatically--more than once.
On New Year's Eve, the Metropolitan Opera unveiled a new production of Cilea's ADRIANA LECOUVREUR, with a high-powered, audience-pleasing cast--headed by Anna Netrebko--in a production by Met favorite David McVicar, appealingly designed and costumed, and played elegantly by the Met orchestra under G
Well, it's that time of the year again--time for a look-back on what was worth making note of during the calendar year that's about to come to an end.
Talk about baptism by fire! That's what Gustavo Dudamel--that wunderkind of the classical conducting world--faced as he reached the podium of the Met for the first time Friday night.
The spectacle is a hunger-inducing delight for the eyes.
I hope somebody from New York City Opera was at BAM last weekend, because Mark-Anthony Turnage's GREEK--a modern retelling of the Oedipus myth from Scottish Opera/Opera Ventures, presented by BAM's Next Wave Festival--is just what the doctor ordered for that company.
The touching, moving, brilliantly site-specific version of Gian Carlo Menotti's AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS, performed this week by New York's vibrant On Site Opera (OSO), had the audience at the Church of the Holy Apostles Church alternately in tears and cheering.
I interviewed Diana Damrau when she had just done her first Violetta, her role debut in the Met's old Willy Decker production.
Antoinette Halloran and Alexander Lewis captivate the audience.
Barrie Kosky's unmusical revival loses more steam on its second outing.
No one can accuse countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo of sitting around and waiting for projects to fall into his lap.
Handel's AMINTA E FILLIDE doesn't have much of a libretto--'nymph meets swain and complications arise,' says the program, and that's about it--and there were just a handful of musicians from Juilliard's early music program on stage at the Morgan Library's tiny Gilder Lehrman Hall.
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Fiddler on the Roof Union Avenue Opera (7/03-7/11) |
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Samson et Dalila Union Avenue Opera (8/14-8/22) |
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L’elisir d’amore Union Avenue Opera (7/24-8/01) |
