The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Opera.
To answer the most burning question for many: Yes, Broadway's Kelli O'Hara can sing opera, acquitting herself nobly and well in the company of “real” opera singers and filling the huge Met Opera without a mike.
We went out into the chilly spring evening - and it became, for me, one of the most totally pleasing evenings of opera I've ever experienced.
When Christine Goerke took on the title role in the Met's revival of Richard Strauss's masterwork ELEKTRA--the final work of director Patrice Chereau--she wasn't so much competing with Nina Stemme, who sang the premiere of the production last spring, but with herself.
Giuseppe Verdi's epic opera is being staged for the first time in two decades at WNO and features a sterling cast in a grand production.
Allan Clayton's performance as Hamlet is riveting.
When I first heard soprano Hyesang Park and tenor Kang Wang--two of the bright young singers featured in last weekend's Juilliard and the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Program concert--they were leads in a charming production of Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA at the school.
The San Diego Opera's new production of Puccini's Turandot held rapt attention throughout its three acts in spite of a dark plot that's implausible even for opera, and a lead character less loveable than Lady Macbeth.
When soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci walked on stage at Zankel Hall for her recital the other night, I thought I had wandered into an Antonioni movie, with a ravishing diva (usually played by Monica Vitti) about to perform for a rapt audience.
While not entirely rare for a single family to possess multiple musical talents, it's certainly unusual to see two people from the same family as leads in the same performance.
A lot of risk, fast rotations in perfect unison, a precarious balance point.
Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is a beautiful show full of so much emotion and talent.
Richard Wagner's last opera, PARSIFAL, is a tough nut to crack.
Opera Philadelphia's production of the George Benjamin-Martin Crimp WRITTEN ON SKIN is another feather in the cap of the company that's quickly becoming the one to watch in the world of contemporary opera.
In many areas of the arts in New York, January is a quiet month.
Sooner or later it had to happen.
On January 27, 2018, Los Angeles Opera presented the Bernstein work at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with a cast that included Emmy-winning television star Kelsey Grammer.
There have been starrier casts heading up Donizetti's L'ELISIR D'AMORE at the Met--put the opera's name in the NY Times search engine and the first one that shows up is the debut of the famed tenor Tito Schipa in 1932, with bass Ezio Pinza as the quack snake-oil salesman Dulcamara.
From the moment the amazing James Conlon-conducted orchestra began their crisp, lively 'Overture' to 'Quartet Finale,' the close of Act One; this remarkable production of CANDIDE entranced the Dorothy Chandler audience.
Ok, y'all…I'm going to be honest.
After a string of cancellations--including the Met's new TOSCA--tenor Jonas Kaufmann made a triumphant return to New York last Saturday at Carnegie Hall, in a recital with his frequent collaborator Helmut Deutsch.
Composers and librettists were the stars Saturday night at The Kennedy Center's triple world premiere.
Wondering if Jonas Kaufmann is going to go out onstage on any given night is something of a parlor game for many opera fans.
By the time you read this, another year's edition of PROTOTYPE--New York's two-week festival of new opera-theatre/music-theatre works different from most anything you've ever seen before--will be gone and it was another to be grateful for.
Even if it were just for its history lesson about the lavender scare of the '50s-- the witch hunt and the mass firings of gay men and women from the federal government during the McCarthy era--FELLOW TRAVELERS by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce would be well worth seeing.
'Memories of Things Past'--'A la recherche du temps perdu' in Proust-speak--and very much in the past it was, for me at least, going in to ACQUANETTA, the piece that opened this year's iteration of the PROTOTYPE.
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L’elisir d’amore Union Avenue Opera (7/24-8/01) |
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Samson et Dalila Union Avenue Opera (8/14-8/22) |
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Fiddler on the Roof Union Avenue Opera (7/03-7/11) |
